THE RED-NECKED PHALAROPE.
ASTRETCH of fiat, marshy land, lying dark and green between the head of a loch and a smaller Lake that lay about a quarter of a mile inland. White sheets of cotton grass and gleams of water told of its boggy nature, and the dark patches were bog-bean, beloved of the bird we were seeking. Straight for the marsh we went, climbing the wire fences of the crofters and dodging the ropes with which their cows were tethered. In the drier parts glorious bog orchids lifted their deep crimson-purple heads, and great plants of marsh marigold were just breaking into golden flower. The marsh was, indeed, an ideal country for the red- necked phalarope.
In the British Isles the red-necked phalarope is a rare breeding species, nesting in only a few places, such as the bogs on some of the outer islands. This marsh appeared to be just the spot beloved of this little bird, which is so specialized for life among watery sur- roundings that it has lobed feet to aid it in swimming. Shallow, peaty water lay on all sides, and miniature forests of bog-bean with stout-stemmed green leaves and pale flowers provided the shelter that phalarope delight in.
Regardless of the peaty water that squelched up at every step we plunged into the marsh. Before we had gone many yards a small bird was flushed—a wee thing which dew with a peculiar flight, somewhat fluttering and insect-like, yet reminiscent of a snipe. The two of us—the others had struck across the lower end of the bog—watched it while it flew round in a biggish circle before alighting among the bog-bean. We had not journeyed here in vain ; we had found at any rate one phalarope. Exulting in our luck, we splashed on, sometimes Sinking m, sometimes drawing back from ground that shook too alarmingly under our feet. In a few minutes a second phalarope jumped up, flying round like the first, but we lost sight of it and could not see where it went to. All the time black-headed gulls were shrieking overhead. There was a colony on the bog, and, much annoyed at our intrusion, they rose in a cloud and abused us roundly. Their screams were in our ears as we waded to the further side of the marsh, but just before reaching it we flushed two more phalarope, and, looking back, saw that the other members of the party were making frantic signals —they, too, had found a pair. There were evidently three or four pairs on the bog, probably more, and with hopes of finding a nest rising high we hunted backwards and forwards. The birds we had flushed last were flying round, and one now flew by quite close to me and settled in a shallow pool. It was the most elegant little fairy of a bird as it paddled about between the stems of the bog- bean leaves, its brown, reddish-brown and cream markings harmonizing beautifully with the surroundings. Suddenly I became aware of a second phalarope slipping in and out among the bog-bean. This one was somewhat bigger and brighter in colouring, and its throat was more chestnut in colour. It was evidently the female, for in this species she is the finer bird. Long ages before the human female dreamt of asserting herself the hen phalarope settled the question of "women's rights" in a manner that must give the males of our species food for thought, even if it does not make them tremble at the possibilities it opens up. The female phalarope has not only assumed greater stature and a brighter livery, but she has freed herself from the nursery, deserting her eggs and chicks and leaving her meek little mate to attend to all domestic duties while she goes off and enjoys herself. If any creature so graceful and beautiful could be termed brazen, this emancipated female would deserve it, for now that she escapes the duties of her sex she undertakes a great deal of the court- ship, and, there is ground for thinking, courts more than one male. Polyandry, it seems, prevails in this species ! To return to the birds we were watching, the first and smaller one was in such a state of twittering excitement that we felt sure we were near the nest. After watching the two birds for some time we became positive that it was on a dryish tuft of grass in the middle of the bog-bean pool near which we were standing, and on which the phalaropes kept swimming up and down. This pool was, however, so uninvitingly deep and black that we looked askance at it. It is 0113 thing to go in up to your middle, or further, in peaty bog water when you have a change of clothes within reach, but the prospect has little attraction when there is no chance of changing for hours, so we compromised by waiting and watching. The duller of the two birds—he was dingy only by comparison with his brighter mate—kept fussing about and swimming to and fro under the bog-bean leaves, picking up an insect here and there, shaking his pretty brown feathers out, and then gliding on like a dainty sprite from fairyland. At last we turned and left him, going off to explore the loch. In the meantime, another member of the party, one of the sterner sex, for whom the prospect of being engulfed in a bottomless bog held no terrors, arrived at the spot, found our pair, dared the pool, crossed with no great disaster, and was rewarded by finding the nest ! It contained twi) eggs and two newly-hatched young ones. The devoted father was so fearless that he returned and brooded the chicks while their discoverer stood by. The young, though only just out of the shell, scrambled from the nest into the rushes, where the little cock got them under his wings and brooded, leaving to luck the remaining eggs, which in appearance were miniature editions of those of the lapwing. There were at least four nests on the bog, for between us we had seen eight birds. Possibly there were more, but the ground was not of the easiest description to explore with sufficient thoroughness. However, we had no regrets ; our pilgrimage had been richly rewarded. We had seen at close quarters the red-necked phalarope in its breeding haunts, and we carried away with us memories of the most charming atom of feathered life that could be imagined—a creature so dainty that it seemed the embodiment of the spirit of the marshes and no mere bird to be catalogued with a long Latin name and described
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