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HYPERBOREAN PHALAROPE. 
coasts of the Baltic Sea. It appears also, though rarely, during 
spring and autumn in the southern Scandinavian provinces. In 
England it is very rare, and quite as accidental as in the United 
States, though it has been casually observed in Germany, France, 
and even on the great lakes of Switzerland : an individual was 
killed on the lake of Geneva in August, 1806, the only one ever 
seen on that lake, where the flat-billed Phalarope is by no means 
so excessively rare : the specimen alluded to was killed while 
swimming and picking up small diptera from the surface of 
the water. These wanderers are always young birds; but never 
within my knowledge has an individual been known to stray into 
any part of Italy. The favourite food of this species is water 
insects, especially diptera, that abound at the mouths of rivers. 
The old ones hover round their young when exposed to any 
imminent danger, repeating prip, prip , and at the commencement 
of August carry them out to sea, at the end of that month being 
no longer to be found inland. The Greenlanders kill them with 
their arrows, and eat the flesh, which being oily, suits their taste: 
they also keep the very soft skin, making use of it to rub their 
eyes with, and thinking it efficacious in curing a species of 
ophthalmia to which they are subject. 
Although the specific name of lobata was given first by Linne to 
the present species before he bestowed upon it the additional one 
of hyperborea , we have thought it proper to retain the latter, which 
is also Linnean, because that of lobata has been successively 
applied to each of the three species, and by Latham exclusively 
appropriated to another, whilst the present has never been so 
misapplied, and is long since unanimously consecrated to this 
species. By adopting the prior name of lobata , we should have 
been compelled to quote our own authority, and say Ph. lobatus, 
Nob., since Ph. lobatus, Lath, is the Ph. fulicarius, and Ph. lobatus, 
Ord, the Ph. Wilsonii. 
