The Northern Pha la rope 
unheeding, while with a tense alertness he holds himself ready to launch 
at a luring morsel. Now and again the bird will rise, with a vigorous 
stroke of the foot, and give a little half-somersault, like a diving grebe, 
save that the lurch is forward rather than down. 
Photo by the Author 
Taken in Santa Barbara 
AN EAGER QUEST 
Whether or not the Northern Phalarope sometimes turns all the way 
around, as does the Wilson—“spins like an automatic teetotum,” as 
Chapman has it—I am unable to say. All I can say is that in many hours 
of watching in both summer and fall I have never seen it do so. But the 
testimony of Messrs. Bowles, 1 Chapman, 2 and Nichols, 3 seems explicit 
and conclusive on this point, and we are left to admit the comparative 
worthlessness of negative evidence. 
Northern Phalaropes are conspicuous as migrants throughout Cali¬ 
fornia both in fall and spring. They are of regular occurrence upon in¬ 
terior waters, as well as along the coast, though they are perhaps some¬ 
what less in evidence upon fresh water in the fall than in the spring. 
They are great loiterers, and the belated appearance of flocks comprising 
individuals in full breeding plumage is one of the local puzzles of bird 
migration. Although they should report in at the northern breeding 
grounds not later than June 15th, they have been seen at Santa Barbara 
on the 16th of June (1911, Bowles), at Los Angeles up to June 19th (1897, 
PL Swarth), and at Goose Lake in Modoc County on June 24th (1912, 
Dawson). 
1 The Shore Birds of Santa Barbara, by J. Hooper Bowles and Alfred B. Howell: Condor, Vol. XIV., Jan., 1918, 
pp. 6, 7. 
2 Frank M. Chapman in Bird-Lore, Vol. VII., p. 274. 
3 John Treadwell Nichols in discussion at the Thirty-third Meeting of the A. O. U., San Francisco, May 19. 1915. 
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