162 HKITISH BIRDS. [vol. x. 



At Golchika, Temminck's Stints fed entirely by the 

 Avaterside, unlike the Little Stints, which fed in the 

 swamps and out on the tiuidra. The only exception was 

 on my first arrival in the district, when a number of birds 

 of both species fed around the melting snow drifts by the 

 balagans ; but perhaps this was because the coimtry, 

 still half frozen, was suddenly overwhelmed by a great 

 rush of birds, and food must have been very scarce for 

 a few days. The Little Stints were tame and confiding, 

 but Temminck's Stints were wild and fractious, con- 

 tinually ruffling at their neighbours, and protesting when 

 a passing man or dog disturbed them. 



Temminck's Stints, as I have said, breed entirely in 

 scrub willow, and as this ground is swamped during the 

 thaw, the birds must wait mitil the floods have gone 

 down, and therefore in most cases they do not nest until 

 five or six days later than the Little Stints. The nest 

 shown in the photograph was an exceptionally early one. 

 I found it on the last day of June. Within fifty yards 

 of the house where I lodged stands a little wooden 

 church, in which service is held once a year when the pope 

 comes down the river from Dudinka to teach and marry 

 and baptize the population of a country that is as large 

 as the United Kingdom. There were a few graves 

 outside the church, and on the mound of one of these the 

 first Temmmck's Stint had built her nest out of the way 

 of the sludge around. This bird was tamer than most 

 of her kind, and when disturbed shammed mjury. This 

 trick was almost universal among the Little Stints, but 

 this was the only time that I observed it in Erolia tem- 

 minckii. The nests of the Little Stints were in most 

 cases lined with willow or birch leaves ; but the nests of 

 Temminck's Stints, although built in willow scrub, never 

 contained leaves in circumstances that suggested that the 

 birds had arranged them there, although most nests were 

 lined with grass bents neatly coiled in the cavity. 



Li my experience Temminck's Stint is not a close 

 sitter, and the nests are difficult to find. The willow 



