ineiit, turned off again In different directions. This scene was repeated a dozen times while I was watching 
them. They seemed to have not the slightest fear of me ; for frequently they came within a yard of where I 
was sitting, and after looking up they continued catching the small water-insects, &c., on the weeds without 
minding my presence in the least. 
“ After having apparently exhausted the food in one pool, on a signal from the male, they suddenly both 
took wing, and flew away to a fresh feeding-place two or three hundred yards off, where we afterwards 
found them. Though we could not discover the nest, I have no doubt that they bad eggs very near the 
spot where we saw them. Indeed on dissecting the female we found two eggs in her, nearly full-sized ; so 
that ])robably she had already deposited the other two, which would have made her number complete. I 
find no account of this bird breeding on the mainland of Scotland.” 
Mr. Newton states, in his Notes on the Ornithology of Iceland, that this species is “ very common on 
all the ponds and lakes of the island. Arrives late in May, and at once begins the duties of nidification. 
On one occasion, in the month of June, I saw a flock of at least a hundred sitting on the surf between the 
breaking waves and the shore.” 
“ This beautiful little species,” says Mr. Salmon, in his account of the birds seen by him in Orkney, 
published in the ‘Magazine of Natural History,’ “appeared to be very tame. Although we shot two pairs, 
those that were swimming about did not take the least notice of the report of the gun : and they seemed to 
be much attached to each other ; for when one of them flew to a short distance, the other directly followed ; 
and while I held a wounded female in my hand, its mate came and fluttered before my face. We were 
much gratified in watching the motions of these elegant little creatures as they kept swimming about and 
were for ever dipping their bills into the water; and so intent were they in their occupation, that they did 
not take the least notice of me, although within a few yards of them. After some little difficulty, we were 
fortunate in finding their nests, which were placed in small tufts of grass growing close to the edge of the 
loch ; they were formed of dried grass, and were about the size of that of a Titlark, but much deeper. They 
had but just commenced laying (June 13); for we found only one or two eggs in each nest, but were 
informed they always lay four.” 
Mr. Dunn in his ‘Ornithologist’s Guide to Orkney and Shetland’ says, “I have never seen this bird in 
Shetland. I got sev'eral in Orkney, but it is not plentiful. The places where I procured their eggs, and 
found the birds most numerous, are a small sheet of water about three or four miles from the lighthouse of 
Sanda, a lake near Nunse Castle, in M^estra, and at Sandvvich, near Stromness.” 
Mr. Wolley, writing to Mr. Hewitson, says, “The few nests I have seen have been in little grassy islets 
in shallow boggy lakes or ponds, in moss or in a tuft of grass close to the water’s edge or, sometimes, a few 
feet away. In the Faroe Islands it is found in a cluster of ponds, in one of the largest of them. In Lapland 
it breeds only far up the country, and sparingly. The bird is extremely tame, swimming about my india- 
rubber bocit so near that I could almost catch it in my hand ; I have seen it even, when far from its nest, 
struck at many times with an oar before it flew away.” Bullock informed Montagu that the Red-necked 
Phalarope “ swims with the greatest ease, and, when on the water, carries its head close to the back, in the 
manner of a Teal, and looks like a beautiful miniature of a Duck.” 
The egg is one inch and an eighth long by seven eighths of an inch broad, and is of a bufty stone-colour, 
blotched all over with blackish brown and pale purple. 
Modern ornithologists consider the structural differences which occur in the Phalaropes of sufficient 
importance to divide them into two genera, — the present bird, with its narrow bill, being made the type 
of Lobipes, and having associated with it the fine L. Wilsoni of America, while that of Phalaropus has been 
retained for the preceding broad and flat-billed species. No others have yet been discovered, and I scarcely 
think it likely that the group will ever be added to. 
The sexes of the present bird differ in the same way as the grey species ; — the female being the largest, 
and by far the most finely coloured during the period of spring and summer. In winter they both become 
white beneath and mottled brownish black and grey above ; the two species are then somewhat similar in 
colour ; but the difference in the form of the bill will always distinguish one from the other. 
The Plate represents a male, a female, and four young birds, of the size of life. The figures of the latter 
were drawn from two specimens taken in Orkney, and which are now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. 
