AGG BIRDS—PHALAROPODIDA. 
stances as many as fifty may be counted within the radius of a mile; but, notwithstand- 
ing this, their nests are extremely difficult to discover, the material and the color of the 
eggs correspond so closely to the appearance of the surrounding surface. If they are 
disturbed while building, the nest is usually abandoned. Incubation is attended to by 
the male alone. The female, however, keeps near, and is quick to give the alarm upon 
the approach of danger. The females are frequently found at this time in small parties 
of six or eight ; and should their breeding-ground be approached, exhibit great anxiety, 
coming from every part of the marsh to meet the intruder, and, hovering over his head, 
utter a weak nasal note, which can be heard to only a short Gistance. This note, which 
is possessed by both sexes, is nearly always made while the birds are in the air, and ita 
production requires apparently considerable effort ; the head and neck being inclined 
downward, and then suddenly raised as the note is uttered, the flight being at the same 
time momentarily checked. The movements of the birds usually render if an easy © 
matter to decide whether or not they have nests in the immediate vicinity. After the 
first alarm, those having nests at a distance disperse, while the others take their course 
in the form of an ellipse, sometimes several] hundred yards in length, with the object 
of their suspicion in the cantre; and, with long strokes of their wings, much like the 
flight of a Kildeer, they move back and forth. As their nests are approached the length 
of their flight is gradually lessened, until at last they are joined by the males, when 
the whole party hover low over the intruder’s head, uttering their peculiar note of alarm. 
At this time they have an ingenious mode of misleading the novice, by flying off to a 
short distance and hovering anxicusly over a particular spot in the marsh, as though 
there were concealed the objects of their solicitude. Shou!d they be followed, however, 
and a search be there made, the manouvre is repeated in another place still farther from 
the real location of the nest. But should this ruse prove unavailing, they return and . 
seem to become fairly desperate, flying about one’s head almost within reach, manifest- 
ing great distress. If possible, still greater agitation isshown when they have unfledged 
young—they even betraying their charge into the hands of the enemy by their too 
obvious solicitude, they then hovering directly over the yonng, and uttering their notes 
of distress. The young have a fine, wiry peep, inaudible beyond a few feet. They are 
very pretty little creatures, covered with yellowish-buft-colored down, with black spots 
on the upper surface of the body. Even when first hatched they are quite lively and 
difficult to capture. 
About the middle of July the females suddenly disappear, and a little later the males 
and the young also leave, with the exception of a few stragglers, which occasionally re- 
main until the last of Augast. The main portion rarely remain as late as the 10th, and 
are usually gone by the 5th. The males commence their fall moult before they leave ; 
but I have never taken a specimen in which the winter plumage was very evident.” 
Genus LOBIPES. Cuvier. 
Membranes scalloped ; bill very slender, awl-shaped. 
LoBIPES HYPERBOREUS (L.) Cuv. 
Worthern Phalarope. 
Phalaropus hyperboreus, KIRTLAND, Am. Journ, Sci. and Arts, xl, 141, 21—WHEATON, 
Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1860, 380 ; Reprint, 1861, 10. 
Lobipes hyperboreus, WHEATON, Food of Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1874, 572; Re- 
print, 1875, 12.—LaNnGpon, Cat. Birds of Cin., 1877, 14; Revised List, Journ. Cin. 
Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1879, 188; Reprint, 22. 
