214 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
A few non-breeding birds frequent the coast during 
the summer months, but it is at the periods of migra- 
tion that the Dunlin is most abundant, while through- 
out the winter large flocks may be seen at low tide 
feeding on the sandbanks and mudflats of the Dee and 
Mersey Estuaries. On May 14th, 1894, there were thou- 
sands of Dunlins in breeding plumage on the saltings 
between Burton and Queensferry. The birds allowed 
us to approach within a few feet before they took wing, 
the Ringed Plovers, in whose company they were feed- 
ing, always rising first. 
The Dunlin nests in several places on the Pennine 
Range, but up to the present no evidence exists of its 
breeding on the moorlands of East Cheshire. 
LITTLE SEEN 
TRINGA MINUTA, Leisler. 
The Little Stint is occasionally met with in the 
estuaries of the Dee and Mersey in autumn, but does 
not appear to have been observed on the spring migra- 
tion. Brockholes describes it as scarce There is a 
local specimen, dated 1838, in Captain Congreve’s 
collection at Burton;? and Mr. F. L. Congreve tells 
us that he obtained two on the marsh at Burton in 
August 1897. At the beginning of September 1892, 
three Little Stints were shot from a small flock on 
the Chester Golf Links, near Queensferry, by Dr. Herbert 
Dobie. Two of these birds are now in the Grosvenor 
Museum, Chester.” 
In the Mersey Estuary several examples were obtained 
on the sands above Runcorn in October 1854.° 
1 Brockholes, op. cit. p. 12. 2 Dobie, op. cit. p. 337. 
=> N. Cooke, Zoologist, ser. 1. vol. xiii. p. 4560. 1855. 
