S TINT— STOCK-DO VE 915 



STINT (akin to Stunt), a, common name for any of the smaller 

 Sandpipers (p. 812), but especially for the Dunlin (p. 172). By 

 British authors it is almost restricted to Tringa minufa and T. 

 temmincki, both of which occur yearly on our coasts.^ 



STITCH-BIRD, one of the most interesting of the Meliphagidai 

 (Honey-eater, p. 428) of New Zealand, so called from uttering a 

 "sharp clicking sound like the striking of two quartz stones together,'' 

 which "has a fanciful resem- 

 blance to the word stitch," the 

 Pogonorniscinda of ornithology. 

 The male is remarkable for 

 the tuft of white feathers stand- 

 ing out behind each eye in 

 contrast with his glossy black 

 head and neck, to which suc- 

 ceeds a band of deep yellow, Pogonoenis. (After Buller.) 



narrow in front but broadening at the sides, while the same 

 colour is shewn in some of the wing-feathers ; but for the most 

 part the rest of the plumage is olive-brown variegated with dark 

 streaks and a white patch on the cubitals. The species, which 

 was only made known in 1839, seems to have had a limited range 

 on the North Island of New Zealand, where it is believed to be 

 now extinct, and though a small number may still exist on some of 

 the oft-lying islets, its extir^Dation can be only a question of a few 

 years, yet its cause one can but guess. However, before the days 

 of colonization, the bird seems to have been a good deal persecuted 

 for the sake of its fine yellow feathers, which Avere sought by the 

 Maories to deck the robes of their chiefs, even as those of the 

 Drepanis (p. 166) were in the Sandwich Islands (c/. Buller, 

 B. N. Zeal. ed. 2, i. pp. 101-105). 



STOCK-DOVE {cf. p. 163), the Columha ceiias of ornithologists, 

 most likely so called from the mistaken belief in its being the origin 

 of the domestic Pigeon, just as for a similar reason STOCK-DUCK 

 is a local name for the common Wild Duck (p. 169); but some 

 suppose that the Dove has its name from its habit of frequently 

 breeding in the stocks of trees, and it must be allowed that the 

 German Holztauhe and some other cognate names in Teutonic 

 tongues, to say nothing of STOCK-EIKLE (a corruption of Stock- 

 HiCKWALL and itself corrupted into Stock Eagle) a local name of a 

 Woodpecker, favour that view. 



^ The first authenticated eggs of the latter were probably taken by Schrader 

 in East Finmark in 1842 {Journ. fur Orn. 1853, p. 308), though its breeding- 

 ground was found there in 1840 by Von Middendorff {Beitr. Kenntn. liiiss. Reichs, 

 viii. p. 207), who in 1843 discovered in the Taimyr peninsula tlie nest of the 

 former {Sib. Rcisc, ii. 2, p. 221, and Proc. Zool. Soc. 1861, p. 398). 



