286 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
spring and fall migration. Henry says: “The only occasion of my meeting with 
this species was in May, 1855, on the Rio Bonita, at the present site of Fort Stanton. 
I met a large flock in full summer plumage, and secured a number of them” (1859, p. 
108). Several were seen at Beaver Lake, August 26-27, 1908 (Birdseye), and one 
August 31, 1903, near Las Vegas; also, phalaropes supposed to be this species were 
seen, two on Horse Lake, September 23, 1904, and eight (three in one flock, five in 
the other) on the Burford Lakes, September 28. They were not seen after the 29th 
(Bailey).—W. W. Cooke. 
Food. —In 155 stomachs examined, vegetable matter—rootlets and seeds of 
aquatic plants—made only 2.8 per cent; animal food, 97.2 per cent, including Crus¬ 
tacea such as small brine shrimps, and small mollusks including snails or other gas- 
teropods, water beetles and their larvae, weevils, winged ants, grasshoppers, dragon 
fly nymphs, crane flies, black gnats, the larvae, pupae, and adults of alkali flies, and 
mosquito larvae (28 stomachs examined contained 53 per cent mosquito larvae). 
General Habits. —In the fall migration, Brooks and Swarth 
report, Northern Phalaropes are common throughout British Columbia, 
being found “miles out to sea in huge flocks and in smaller numbers 
inland,” and occurring “from the coast up to the highest Alpine 
lakelets” (1925, p. 40). At Mono Lake, California, they have been 
found in great numbers feeding on the alkali flies that mass along the 
water’s edge and over the surface of the briny lake. 
Slender little white-throated, gray-backed ones were seen at Lake 
Burford in the fall migration swimming rapidly about, twisting and 
turning as they picked their food from the surface of the water, in 
striking contrast to the big, dark, phlegmatic ducks and Coots by which 
they were surrounded. 
During a spring migration of these beautiful birds at Monterey, Doc¬ 
tor Chapman found a large pond “fairly speckled” with them, and as he 
approached its margin “was not a little astonished to observe that 
apparently one-half of the Phalaropes in it were spinning about in the 
most remarkable manner. They might have been automatic teeto¬ 
tums. . . The lobed feet were moved alternately in such a man¬ 
ner that the birds spun around in the same spot, making a complete 
revolution in about two seconds and from three or four to as many as 
forty turns without stopping. A rotary movement of the shallow 
water was thus created, bringing to the surface small forms of aquatic 
life which the Phalaropes eagerly devoured, their slender bills darting 
rapidly two or three times during each revolution” (1908, pp. 269-270). 
In the Cape Region of Lower California most of the Phalaropes 
collected by Mr. Frazar had suffered mutilations of the feet or breast, 
probably caused by the bites of fishes (Brewster, 1902b, p. 59), which 
is suggestive in view of Abbott Thayer’s theory of the need for protective 
water and sky coloration by gulls and terns which habitually sleep on 
the surface of the water. 
The winter home of the Northern Phalaropes has long been supposed 
to be at sea off the coasts of South America, south of the equator, but 
