PHALAROPES: NORTHERN PHALAROPE 
285 
out into a loud harsh barking kown, Jcown, and after working them¬ 
selves up draw on their imaginations for methods of decoy, were it not 
all done in such tragic earnest, they would indeed be laughably droll 
figures. Bending one knee and throwing back a long pink leg as if 
to get a better purchase, one would flap the opposite long black wing 
like the sail of a windmill till it almost touched the ground. Then, 
stiff-legged, the acrobat would tilt forward against the wind till it 
seemed as if its small stilted up body would surely tip over on its 
bill; and then again it would begin violently flapping its wings at its 
sides. Or one of the droll birds would merely run along the beach 
eloquently shaking its wings” (1917b, p. 157). 
Additional Literature.—Bryant, H. C., Condor, XVI, 221, 226,1914 (nest).— 
Chapman, F. M., Camps and Cruises of an Ornithologist, 288-289, 1908 — 
Pearson, T. G., Educational Leaflet 89, Nat. Assoc. Audubon Soc.— Tyler, J. G., 
Pacific Coast Avifauna, No. 9, 25-29, 1913.— Wetmoiie, Alexander, U. S. Dept. 
Agr. Bull. 1359, 16-20, 1925. 
PHALAROPES: Family Phalaropodidae 
The three Phalaropes resemble Sandpipers but have dense duck¬ 
like plumage and lobed or margined toes for swimming, as they live 
largely on the water. The female, who is large and more brilliantly 
colored than the male, proves the rule of sexual coloration by doing 
the courting and selecting the nesting site but leaving the less conspicu¬ 
ously marked male to incubate the eggs. 
Reference.—VVetmore, Alexander, U. S. Dept. Agr. Bull. 1359,1925 (food). 
NORTHERN PHALAROPE: Lobipes lobatus (Linnaeus) 
Description. — Length: 7-8 inches, wing 4-4.4, bill .8-.9, tarsus .7-.8. Bill 
very slender, straight, legs short, toes with scalloped membranes. Adult female in 
breeding plumage: Upperparts, including wings, tail, and sides of breast, mainly 
slaty, with buff or tawny stripes making a V on back, rump white, wings with white 
stripe (in all plumages), axillars, most of wing linings, and median underparts white, 
neck and chest largely rust-red, contrasting strikingly with white throat; eyes brown, 
with broken white eye ring, bill black, legs and feet grayish. Adult male in breeding 
plumage: Similar to female but slightly smaller and much duller, face largely white. 
Adults in winter plumage: Upperparts chiefly gray, darker on head and with blackish 
ear patch; rest of head and underparts white, brown neck patch and V of back 
replaced by white. Young in Juvenal plumage: Like winter adults, but upperparts 
darker, feather margins huffy or rusty, foreneck and chest suffused with brown; legs 
and feet bluish flesh color. 
Range. —Old and New Worlds. Breeds in arctic regions of both hemispheres. 
In North America breeds from arctic coasts and islands of Alaska, Mackenzie, and 
Keewatin, and in^entral Greenland south to Quebec, Hudson Bay, southern Macken¬ 
zie, and southern Alaska; winters at least along the coast of Peru; of casual occurrence 
in the interior of the United States and in Ecuador and Argentina. 
State Records.— Breeding in the circumpolar regions and wintering far south 
of the equator, the Northern Phalarope crosses New Mexico as a rare visitant in both 
