160 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. x. 



language of this little wader, for our judgments of 

 birds' songs are like most other impressions, apt to be 

 influenced by our own feelings ; and I first heard Tem- 

 minck's Stint calling in surroundings, both natural and 

 human, that were so strange to me and so stimulating 

 that I am afraid that even now, many months afterwards, 

 they must miconsciously colour any description that I 

 write. 



But whatever the quality, no illusion can discount the 

 quantity of the love-songs of Temminck's Stint. On 

 the journey down the Yenesei, as the character of the 

 country changes from taiga to tundra, and the sun's 

 course swings from an arc to a circle that sets a crown on 

 the two months' day of the glorious Arctic summer, 

 nothing is more impressive than the tireless vigour and 

 strength of all life. From mid- June onwards the birds 

 never seem to sleep. Doubtless they do so fitfully when 

 the shadows are long on the snow-drifts, but others of 

 their fellows are always ready to take their places. As 

 far as a human observer can see there is no noonday 

 siesta, nor roosting time, as in this land of leisurely 

 seasons, and throughout the splendid sunny midnights, 

 the marshes ring most wonderfully with the calls of 

 Stints, Terns, Gulls, Ducks and Divers. The strain of this 

 two months of continual passion, challenging, fighting, 

 wooing and mating on the individual bird, coming as it 

 does at the end of the great migratory flight, must be 

 tremendous. One wonders that they can find time to 

 eat. Probably they do not need much food at this 

 season. The Ruffs for instance, arrive at the breeding 

 grounds padded thickly with fat, and Manniche records 

 that in Greenland {The Birds of North-east Greenland) 

 the female Grey Phalaropes are similarly jacketed. 

 But, from first to last, no bird of the whole rout declared 

 himself more strenuously than Temminck's Stint. At 

 any time by the Golchika River you could count a dozen 

 birds aloft at once, trilling and palpitating like marionettes 

 dangled on invisible strings from the sky. 



