GRALLATORES. 409 



Pennant describes under the name of Plain Phalarope *, a bird which was 

 taken to the north of Behring's Straits, near Icy Cape, in the beginning of 

 August or end of July on Captain Cooke's last voyage. This is considered by 

 recent authors to have been merely an example of Ph. hyperboreus in a state of 

 moult, in which the scolloped membranes of the toes had folded in, as they do 

 when dry. Setting aside the injustice of supposing that a naturalist of Pen- 

 nant's habits of industry would expressly mention this as a specific mark of 

 distinction, without having examined it, the form of the bill, which he states to be 

 dilated at the end, presents another characteristic difference ; and I think that the 

 Plain Phalarope ought not to be erased from our lists merely because a second 

 example has not hitherto been detected. I have, however, other grounds for 

 believing that a very handsome Phalarope, answering, in some particulars, to the 

 Plain Phalarope, and unknown to the naturalists of the present day, exists in 

 America. In September 1 819, while at York Factory, Hudson's Bay, a small bird 

 was brought to me, which had a depressed bill, rounded at the end, with the feet 

 more than half pal mated, and the toes evenly bordered to the nails. Its plumage, 

 as far as my recollection goes, was mostly white. The natives said that it was 

 the only bird of the kind they had ever seen. From the pressure of other affairs, 

 I could neither prepare the skin of the specimen nor take a description, but I 

 put the bird into spirits, and sent it, along with a considerable number of other 

 specimens, to England by a ship which was then on the point of sailing. They 

 reached London, but I never could trace what became of any of them afterwards. 

 I think, from the rarity of this bird at Hudson's Bay, that it most probably 

 frequents the western side of the Rocky Mountains, and hope that it may one 

 day be found in New Caledonia. — R. 



* Phalaropus glacialis (Lath.) Plain Phalarope (Penn.) 

 Tringa glacialis. Gmel. 



" Ph. with a slender bill, dilated at the end. Crown dusky and dull yellow ; across each eye a black line ; cheeks 

 and fore-part of the neck clay coloured ; breast and belly white ; back and tertials dusky, edged with dull yellow. 

 Coverts, primaries, and tail cinereous ; the last edged like the tertials. Legs yellowish. Toes bordered with a plain 

 or unscolloped membrane. Taken in the Frozen Sea, lat. 69J° N., long. 191^° E." — Arct. Zool., ii.,p. 495. 



3 G 



