56 WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



birds a little more closely, they would in many 

 instances find they had got as many Curlew Sand- 

 pipers as Dunlins in winter plumage. 



The Little Stint is a neat little wader, very like 

 the Dunlin in plumage, the black patch on the breast 

 alone excepted. It is a feathered wonder, nesting 

 on the Siberian tundras and other parts of Arctic 

 Europe. These birds are great flighters, being met 

 with in Africa and India. They visit the eastern 

 and southern parts of our shores ; Sussex especially 

 at one time, before the mud-banks and flats were 

 reclaimed, was visited by Stints in considerable 

 numbers. As this miniature Dunlin, as it might 

 be called, mixes with them, it very frequently gets 

 into the shore-shooter's bag. This is nothing sur- 

 prising, for when hosts of sparrows in late autumn 

 frequent the fields where corn has been cut and 

 carried, if you fire at them you will find other birds 

 drop besides sparrows, that have been feeding with 

 them on the same kind of food. And that is the 

 reason why Dunlins, Sanderlings, Curlew Sandpipers, 

 and Stints have all fallen to the shot when we have 

 been fowling along shore. In dead winter they all 

 feed alike, and frequent the same fiats and slubs. 



I have seen this bright, dashing little wanderer 

 in summer plumage ; it does not take it long to 

 shoot from Norway here ; possibly the bird may 

 yet be found nesting nearer home. Some of the 

 almost unvisited rock-stacks that it is impossible to 

 get near, except under the most favourable circum- 

 stances — and then one has to leave them again in 



