General Notes, 
The Red Phalarope ( Crymofhilus fulicarius ) at Nantucket Island, 
Massachusetts. — While driving in the western portion oi this island on 
May I, 1892, my attention was attracted while crossing the beach at the south 
head of Hammuck Pond to quite a number of small birds (about foity 
estimated) which, when flying on the waves, resembled the Sanderling 
( Calidris arenaria ), and which were hovering just above the water and 
alighting on it amid the breakers which were rolling in on the beach. I at 
once recognized that that most graceful of the smaller water birds, the Red 
Phalarope, or Whale Bird as it is sometimes called, was before me. Never 
having taken them before, I filled my pocket with cartridges and, hastily 
jumping from my wagon (leaving my horse, who is accustomed to such pro- 
ceedings, to take care of himself on the crest of the beach), I ran to the edge 
of the water and commenced firing; nor was my ardor dampened, although 
my legs and feet were, after the waves had twice washed over my rubber 
boots. There was a strong south by west wind blowing at the time, as it had 
been for a day or so previous, which drifted my dead birds on the shore. 
The weather for the past week, as it was that day, had been quite cool. The 
behind it, rising and falling with the waves several feet at a time. Of the 
fifteen I shot down I saved twelve, one of which was a Northern Phalarope 
(. Phalaropus lobatus), a female in the adult spring plumage, a most beauti- 
ful bird, and the first I have taken in this plumage. I could easily have 
captured more of the Red Phalaropes, but considered I had a sufficiently good 
series, the birds being in various stages of plumage, except the fully adult. 
One of the crew of the life-saving station at this end of the island (west), 
and within a mile and a half of the spot where I shot them, informed me 
the next day that, on the day previous to the one on which I shot them, he 
should think he had seen nearly two hundred of them. On May 10 they 
had mostly departed. There were several hundreds in the flocks which 
were resting on the water and flying about. One of my friends, who has 
made the passage several springs from New York to South Carolina and 
return, and who knows the bird, informs me that in the years 1886, 1887, 
and 1S89, he saw them in numbers beyond estimate, about April 20, fifty to 
one hundred miles north of Cape Hatteras, N. C., and perhaps fifty miles 
from land. 
I am of the opinion that this bird is more abundant along the coast 
than would be inferred from the few which are taken, but I account for 
so few, comparatively, being noted by the fact that as a usual thing they 
do not linger near the shore, unless driven in by severe weather. 
As far as I am aware, this spring, the first of these birds observed were 
