LITTLE STINT. 5 



" In the case of Tr. minuta I obsers^ed no peculiar manoeuvres such as the 

 male of Tr. temminckii shows at the breeding-season, in its remarkable aerial 

 flights and strongly developed song. The male bird delivers his pretty twittering 

 song whilst sitting on the ground, either immediately on or near the nest, but the 

 female also possesses the same twittering song. After the male bird had been 

 shot at one of the three nests, the female appeared, settled close to the empty nest, 

 uttering a pretty twittering song quite similar to that of the male. In the 

 stomachs of examples shot, I found minute fragments of insects mixed with sand. 

 During the autumn migration, when they visit the southern parts of the country 

 in flocks, I have found their stomachs also partly filled with the seeds of a shore 

 plant." 



Mr. A. Trevor-Batty e has published the following details respecting his 

 discovery of the eggs of the Little Stint on Kolguev in 1894 * : — " The little stint 

 was by far the most abundant Wader on the island, and next numerically was the 

 dunlin. On June 16 they were in small parties by the Kriva, chasing one another 

 about, and none appeared to be nesting. On July 27 we found a nest with four 

 eggs. It was a cup in the peat half-filled with dead leaves of creeping birch only. 

 In the many nests I examined there were always dead leaves in the bottom of a 

 cup — leaves generally of the creeping birch {Betula nana) or, according to the 

 surroundings, of Vaccinium. Seldom had any other material been used. But a 

 nest found on July 9 was ' a deep cup lined with dead birch leaves and a little 

 dead grass.' AVe never in any instance saw more than one bird at the nest, or 

 with the young. Out of seven birds secured under these circumstances, five were 

 females, two were males. During the nesting-season and up to about the fifth 

 week in August, parties of little stints numbering five, ten, or fifteen birds or so, 

 might certainly be seen flying in and about the lakes. When flying in this way, 

 these birds look very like larks, and make a twittering noise. No words could 

 adequately convey a good idea of the complicated ruses adopted by this tiny wader 

 near the nest : nor could one express phonetically the various notes it then utters. 

 Thus : ' July 10, The little stint who had the nest made while feigning lameness 

 &c. a noise exactly like the squeaking of a house-mouse.' ' July 12, Took one 

 nest of little stint Avith four eggs. One bird only at the nest as usual — a male. 

 It behaved, as H. said, like a dancing doll, jumping up and down on the same 

 spot as if on springs.' " 



Messrs. H. J. and C. E. Pearson also observed the Little Stint nesting on 

 Kolguev in July 1895. Mr. H. J. Pearson gives the following interesting account 



* ' Ice-bound on Kolguev ' (Westmiuster : Constable & Co., 1895), pp. 434, 435. 



