300 
WILSON’S PHALAROPE. 
along our eastern coast, from Boston to New Jersey, as well as in Kentucky 
and other portions of the Union, I have not seen its nest, nor even its eggs. 
Mr. Drummond, whose zeal as a student of nature must be known to every 
one devoted to natural history, had the good fortune to find its nest in the 
course of his rambles among the Rocky Mountains, but he has given no in- 
formation respecting its habits. A person who showed me the skins of two 
specimens procured in July near Cape May in New Jersey, assured me that 
he shot them near their nests, and that they had four eggs. While I was in 
the same neighbourhood, in the month of June, 1829, a fisherman gunner, 
with whom I was at the time residing at Great Egg Harbour, brought me a 
pair which he had just killed. He represented them as very gentle and 
easily approached, and said that on going towards them they affected to be 
lame, and opened their wings as if to induce him to run after them ; instead 
of doing which, however, he immediately fired and killed them both. 
Having put away the birds in a safe place, he and I took to his boat and 
went to the island where he had found them. He showed me the spot on 
which they had been shot; but although we searched most diligently for the 
nest, we could not find it. On examining the birds when we returned, I 
saw that the female must have been sitting. About the same period my 
son procured two specimens of this Phalarope ouj; of a flock of five, on the 
rocks at the rapids of the Ohio below Louisville. Late in the summer of 
1824 I shot three of them near Buffalo creek on Lake Erie. My generous 
friend, Edward Harris, Esq., presented me, at New York, with a young 
bird in autumnal plumage, from which I made the figure in the plate ; and 
another, in a most emaciated state, was given me at Boston, in the winter, 
by my young friend John Bethune, Esq. 
Those which I procured near Lake Erie were engaged in feeding around 
the borders and in the shallows of a pond of small extent. When I first 
observed them at some distance, I thought they were Yellow-shanks 
{Tot anus Jlavipes), so much did their motions resemble those of that 
species. Like it, this Phalarope wades in the water up to its body, picks 
for food right and left, turns about, and "performs all its motions with viva- 
city and elegance. They kept closer together than the Yellow-shanks 
usually do, but, like them, they would for a few moments raise their wings 
as if apprehensive of getting into too deep water and being obliged to fly. 
They preferred flying to swimming on such occasions, although from the 
general character of the tribe one might expect otherwise. After watching 
them about a quarter of an hour, during which time they did not utter a 
single note, I fired at them when they were all close together, and killed the 
whole. On opening them I found their stomachs to contain small worms 
and fragments of very delicate shells. The birds seen at the Falls of the 
