476 HIVPERBOREAN PHALAROPE. 
main in flocks at sea ten miles from the shore, retiring early 
in June to mountain ponds: remarkably faithful to each other, 
both sexes are quarrelsome with strangers, and the males are 
very pugnacious, fighting together, running to and fro on the 
surface of the water, while the females are sitting. The species 
passes recularly along the north coasts of Scotland and the 
continental coasts of thu Baltic Sea. It appears also, though 
rarely, during spring and autumn in the southern Scandinavian 
provinces. In England it is very rare, and quite as accidental 
as in the United States, though it has been casually observed 
in Germany, France, and even on the great lakes of Switzer- 
Jand: an individual was killed on the Lake of Geneva in 
August 1806, the only one ever seen on that lake, where the 
flat-billed phalarope is by no means so excessively rare: the 
specimen alluded to was killed while swimming and picking 
up small diptera from the surface of.the water. These 
wanderers are always young birds; but never within my 
knowledge has an individual been known to stray into any 
part of Italy. The favourite food of this species is water 
insects, especially diptera, that abound at the mouths of 
rivers. ‘The old ones hover round their young when exposed 
to any imminent danger, repeating prip, prip, and at the 
commencement of August carry them ont to sea, at the end 
of that month being no longer to be found inland. The 
Greenlanders kill them with their arrows, and eat the flesh, 
which being oily, suits their taste: they also keep the very 
soft skin, making use of it to rub their eyes with, and thinking 
it efficacious in curing a species of ophthalmia to which they 
are subject. 
Although the specific name of lobata was given first by 
Linné to the present species before he bestowed upon it the 
additional one of hyperborea, we have thought it proper to 
retain the latter, which is also Linnean, because that of lobata 
has been successively applied to each of the three species, and 
by Latham exclusively appropriated to another, whilst the 
present has never been so misapplied, and is long since unani- 
