LITTLE STINT. 1 33 



The Knot in summer dress is deep chestnut on the face, throat, 

 breast, and abdomen ; the streaked head is browner, and the 

 mantle much darker, spotted with chestnut and with pale 

 edgings to many of the feathers. The white-shafted primaries 

 and secondaries are greyish black, the flanks and under tail- 

 coverts are whitish, mottled with dark grey and black. The 

 lower back and upper tail-coverts are white barred with black 

 and chestnut. The bill is black, the legs deep olive, the irides 

 dark brown. In winter the upper parts and breast are ashy 

 grey, with dark streaks on head and breast, and with the 

 coverts neatly patterned with dark grey. The tail-coverts are 

 as in summer, but without any chestnut. There is a distinct 

 white wing bar. The under parts are white with grey chevrons 

 and bars on the flanks. The olive-green legs are much lighter 

 than in summer. In the young the upper parts are ashy, but 

 marked with bars of black and buff"; the breast, abdomen, and 

 flanks are suff'used with buff", and the throat and breast are 

 streaked with brown. The legs are dull olive. Length, 10 ins. 

 Wing, 6'5 ins. Tarsus, 1*25 ins. 



Little Stint. Erolia mi?mta (Leisler). 



Breeding in Arctic Europe and Asia, and travelling far south 

 to winter, the Little Stint (Plate 55) pays short but regular 

 visits to our shores in autumn and, less frequently, in spring. 

 It is a passage migrant which reaches South Africa and India ; 

 the eastern Siberian form is met with in Australia. 



In Yorkshire the Dunlin is commonly called the "Stint" by 

 fowlers, but the true stints are much smaller waders ; the Little 

 Siint is the best known of the three which occur in Britain, 

 Mr. J. E. Harting was, I believe, the first to call attention to 

 the similarity of this species to a small Dunlin ; the rarer 

 Temminck's Stint resembles a diminutive Common Sandpiper. 

 The small size and shorter bill — roughly three-quarters the length 



