Vv CHARADRIIDAE 279 
with more tapering bill, breeds in Scandinavia, Russia, and Siberia, 
as well as from Alaska to Greenland, Iceland, Shetland, Orkney, 
and the Hebrides; it rarely migrates to Western Europe, but reaches 
India, New Guinea, Guatemala, and Peru. It has dark grey and 
rufous upper parts, a white alar bar, throat, and belly, a grey breast, 
and chestnut sides of the neck nearly meeting in front. By winter 
the red tints have vanished and the white has increased. This 
attractive little bird is often so tame that it will feed at the feet of 
an intruder, or will even proceed to settle itself on its small and 
rather deep nest, placed in some tuft of herbage; the four eggs are 
greenish-olive with black markings. When disturbed from them it 
flies around with a shrill reiterated “ tweet.” It breeds in swamps 
or by hill-lakes, and can swim well, but is not found so far out to 
sea as the Grey Phalarope. LP. (Steganopus) wilsonz, of temperate 
North America, migrating as far as Patagonia and the Falklands, 
is a larger, longer-billed bird, with a white nape and a black stripe 
down each side of the head and neck. 
Tringa alpina, the Dunlin or Oxbird, is familiar to most 
autumn visitors to our flatter coasts. Breeding not uncommonly 
in Britain, though chiefly in the north, it is found in the colder parts 
of both the Old and the New World, while exceptionally its eggs 
have been obtained in Southern Spain ; in winter it extends to the 
Canaries, Zanzibar, India, China, California, and the West Indies. 
When first they arrive on the shore the large flocks are remarkably 
tame, and allow even gunners to walk among them, as they 
forage with head bent down over the mud or sand, or rise with a 
cheeping cry, only to alight again at close quarters. The slight 
nest, placed amongst heather or short grass on some moory hill- 
pasture or seaside marsh, contains four greenish-white eggs with 
brown or rufous spotting. The plumage exhibits a mixture of 
rufous, grey, and black above, and is chiefly white beneath, with a 
large, black, pectoral patch ; the decurved bill and the feet are black. 
Most of the rufous and all the black disappear in winter. 7’ 
minuta, the Little Stint, a miniature Dunlin with no black on the 
breast, and a short, straight bill, visits Britain regularly on passage, 
and breeds from the coasts of Northern Norway and Russia to 
Arctic Asia, a red-throated species or race (7’. rujicollis) occurring 
east of the Lena; in winter the birds reach South Africa, the 
Indian Region, Australia, and Tasmania. 7". minutilla, the darker 
American Stint, with olive feet, which occupies the Arctic New 
