172 DUNBIRD— DUNLIN 



DUNBIED, DUNCUR or DUNIlER, names of the Pochakd. 



DUNLIN, the common name of the commonest of shore-birds, 

 the Tringa alpina and T. cinches of Linnseus, who, not knowing the 

 great seasonal change of plumage it undergoes, took examples in 

 their summer dress to be specifically distinct from those in that 

 which it wears in winter — an error, long shared by many writers, 

 which Montagu in 1813 (Orn. Diet. Appendix) was perhaps the 

 first to suspect, though it could hardly be said to have been dis- 

 pelled until Temminck in 1815 {Ma7i. d'Orn., pp. 395-398) boldly 

 united them, calling the species T. variabilis.^ In its breeding-attire 

 the Dunlin is a beautiful bird, of a rich reddish-orange above, each 

 feather having a dark brown median stripe, with a broad black 

 gorget contrasting with the white of the lower plumage. In this 

 condition it is generally known to professional gunners as the 

 PURRE or Stint, though the last name is by authors restricted to 

 two or three smaller species. The Dunlin breeds sparingly on the 

 higher hills of the western, midland, and northern counties of 

 England, and far more abundantly and at lower levels in Scotland, 

 as well as on the continent from Holland northwards. The ordin- 

 ary form of Dunlin from the New World has been described 

 as distinct under the name of T. americana, and examples of it are 

 constantly larger than those of Einrope, though there is no other 

 diff'erence between them. A smaller form of Dunlin, by some 

 writers accounted a species, the T. schinzi of Brehm,^ also occurs 

 not very rarely on our coasts, and generally in flocks by itself. It 

 is said to breed on the Cimbric peninsula, but nothing is known of 

 the limits of its range, and at present it cannot be deemed with 

 certainty to be even a local race. In the pairing -season the cock 

 Dunlin, like most of his allies, exercises himself in peculiar flights, 

 and in the course of them utters a singular whistle, which sounds 

 like the for-a-time continuous ringing of a small bell with a shrill 

 note, and notwithstanding its high pitch is pleasing to the ear. 

 The nest is a simple depression in the ground, to some extent 

 furnished or enclosed by grass, leaves, or the like, as incubation 

 proceeds ; and therein are laid four eggs, generally of great beauty, 

 with varied spots or blotches, but presenting so many diflferences 

 that description of them is here impossible. Towards winter Dun- 

 lins flock in thousands to our shores, especially those which are 

 fringed by extensive mud-flats, and are thus exposed to much per- 

 secution on the part of fowlers, both by the gun and the net. In 

 an aviary they bear confinement well, and at the proper season will 

 assume their nuptial plumage. 



^ This was already a synonym of T. alpina, for in 1810 Bernhard Meyer had 

 so applied it {Taschenb. deutsch. Vogel, ii. p. 397). 



2 Not to be confounded with the T. schinzi of Bonaparte, now known as T. 

 bonapartii, a North- American species belonging to a different group of the genus. 



