296 CHARADRIIDA 
distinctly did the two species contrast in size that one was 
reminded of a clutch of chickens racing after the mother. 
On the same day I also observed parties of Stints, each 
consisting of some fifteen to twenty individuals. All the 
above-mentioned remained but a few days on the coast, 
for on September 12th every one of them had departed. 
On September 9th, 1897, I observed a pair of immature 
Little Stints running about on a grass-bank on the Dublin 
coast. Several Pied Wagtails accompanied them. ‘The 
Stints were so tame that they httle heeded a woman when 
she wheeled a perambulator (in which sat a noisy and 
fidgety infant) within a few paces of where they were feed- 
ing. With the aid of a field-glass I have, on different 
occasions, detected one or two Stints in a great assemblage 
of Duniins.! It is then often difficult to secure a specimen 
of the former without sacrificing many lives of the latter.’ 
Two Stints observed by Walter appeared very diminutive 
when contrasted with a “ lordly Black-backed Gull, which, 
with head embedded in its shoulders, stood majestically 
in repose, its dignity not unbending to admit even a look 
at those little elf-hke birds running about, apparently in 
pursuit of sand-flies.” The ‘thousands of Stints ’ we some- 
times hear of as frequenting our shores are doubtless large 
flocks of Dunlins, which are hopelessly confounded with 
Tringa minuta by ornithologists of limited experience. 
The flesh differs but little from that of the Dunlin and 
other small sea-side ‘waders.’ The few specimens which 
I have tasted had a rather fishy flavour. English epicures, 
however, formerly esteemed the flesh of several kinds of 
shore-birds a delicacy ; thus we read :— 
“The puet, godwit, stynt,® 
The pallat that allure 
The miser, and doth make 
A fearful epicure.”’ 
1 Large flocks of Dunlins should be examined most carefully with a 
binocular, for rare species often associate with them. 
2 Once I obtained a good specimen of a Little Stint by firing a charge 
of fine shot into a flock of Dunlins as they flew past me, eleven of the 
latter also falling to my gun. This method of securing a specimen I do 
not advocate ; indeed I would not have pulled trigger at all had I not 
seen previously quite a number of Stints among the flock of Dunlins on 
the strand, 7.e., before they took wing and flew past me. 
3 Dunlins in all likelihood. 
