The manuscript for this volume was completed in March, 1927. Contributions received since then will be acknowledged later. Only information of great importance could be added. When this volume appears contributions of photographs or notes relating to the gallinaceous birds should be sent to
LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN SHORE BIRDS
The female red phalarope in her full nuptial plumage is, to my mind, the handsomest, certainly the most richly colored, of the three known species of phalaropes. The species is cosmopolitan, with a circumpolar breeding range; it is apparently homogeneous throughout its wide range except for a local race, breeding in Spitsbergen, which has been separated and named _Phalaropus fulicarius jourdaini_ Iredale; this race is said to have paler edgings on the back, scapulars, and tertials. The species is commonly known abroad as the grey phalarope, an appropriate name for the bird in its winter plumage, in which it is most often seen.
It is less often seen in the United States than the other two species; its summer home is so far north that it is beyond the reach of most of us; and at other seasons it is much more pelagic than the other species, migrating and apparently spending the winter far out on the open sea, often a hundred miles or more from land. It seldom comes ashore on the mainland except when driven in by thick weather or a severe storm. Hence it is an apparently rare bird to most of us. But in its arctic summer home it is exceedingly abundant. Alfred M. Bailey (1925) says that "this was the most abundant of the shore birds at Wales, as at Wainwright, Alaska. As a person walks over the tundra there is a continual string of those handsome birds rising from the grass." Again he writes:
At Whalen, near East Cape, Siberia, we saw thousands of these beautiful little fellows on July 11. The day was very disagreeable, with a strong wind off the ice and a drizzling rain. From the ship we could see waves of birds rising some distance off in such dense flocks that individuals could not be distinguished; the mass looked like a long, thin cloud swirling before the wind; one end of the line rose high in the air, while the other end swerved nearer to the water. They swung about with the erratic movements and wave-like flight so characteristic of black skimmers, now high in the air, again low over the water. As we worked along the shore, thousands that were feeding close along the beach rose and flew across the sand spit in front of us. There was a continual stream of them drifting by, like so much sand before a strong wind. They were, at this time, beginning to molt their breeding plumage.