CHARADRIID/E. 587 



THE AMERICAN STINT. 



TRINGA MINUTILLA, ^'ieillot. 



The American Stint has been obtained in this country on three 

 occasions. The first example was shot on a piece of wet grass-land 

 adjoining the sea-shore in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, on October loth 

 1853, by W. S. Vingoe, who showed it to E. H. Rodd, by whom it 

 was recorded in ' The Zoologist,' p. 4297 ; the occurrence being 

 also noticed under the name of Tringa pusilla in the Preface 

 (p. vi) to the 3rd Edition of Yarrell's ' British Birds.' In Sep- 

 tember 1869 a second example was killed on Northam Burrows, 

 near Bideford, by Mr. Rickards of Clifton (Zool. s.s. p. 202 5 j, who 

 brought the freshly-skinned specimen to Mr. Harting for his inspec- 

 tion, and its identity has been vouched for by that competent authority 

 (Hbk. Brit. Birds, p. 143). On August 22nd 1892 — and also on 

 Northam Burrows — another example was shot by Mr. Broughton 

 Hawley, on whose behalf I exhibited it at a meeting of the 

 Zoological Society (P. Z. S. 1893, P- 178)- The date is erroneously 

 given in 'The Zoologist,' 1892, p. 411, as i6th August ; that being 

 the day on which Mr. Hawley first observed the bird. He informed 

 me that our Little Stints did not arrive there until later. The species 

 has, therefore, as good a claim as many other stragglers to be noticed 

 in this work ; but it has not been considered necessary to figure it, 

 as an engraving would not adequately show the points of difference 

 between it and the Little Stint. The American bird is rather 

 smaller, with a proportionately longer and more slender bill, while it 

 is conspicuously darker at all seasons ; in the breeding-plumage the 

 fore part of the chest is ashy-buff, with distinct spots of dark brown 

 — not rufous with tiny dots as in T. minuta ; and the legs are dusky 

 olive-brown, whereas they are black in our Little Stint. 



This species, called by American ornithologists the Least Sand- 

 piper, has visited Greenland, and is widely distributed through- 

 out the Arctic portions of the New World, breeding as far south 

 as Sable Island — a little below Nova Scotia, as well as in New- 

 foundland, Labrador, and the northern regions generally as far west 

 as Alaska. A limited number winter in the Gulf States, but the 

 majority pass onward to Mexico, the West Indies, Central America 



