TRINGA MINUTA. 209 
This from what was apparently the only nest of the species found by 
Dr. von Middendorff, who states (Sib. Reise, II. ii. p. 221) that on the Taimyr 
he first observed the species on the 17th June, but found almost complete eggs 
in a female then shot. On the 22nd what appeared to be a cock bird rose up 
before him and hovered like a Falcon, trilling its song, raising its wings high 
over its back and beating them down again. On the Ist of July he saw a hen, 
with pufled up feathers and head drawn in, run away from him. She was so 
hot in the defence of her nest that he was able to take off his game-bag and 
put it over her. The four eggs were found in a hollow in the moss of the 
swampy low ground, hardly twenty yards from a large pool. In the nest 
there were only willow-leaves as a bedding, and these seemed to have been 
blown by the wind, rather than collected by the bird. He goes on to say that 
the eggs exactly resemble those figured by Thienemann (Fortpflanzungs- 
geschichte der gesammten Vogel, Ixii. 1 a, 5) ; but it is to be remembered that, 
from what we know of the breeding-range of this species, it is hardly possible 
that Thienemann’s specimens could have really been those of 7. minuta, 
so that I cannot but regard Dr. von Middendorff as the discoverer. This 
was sent by him as an “ wnicum’’ to Dr. Baldamus, from whom I received it. 
I exhibited it at a Meeting of the Zoological Society on the 10th December, 
1861], and should have had it figured, had it been in better condition. | 
[§ 3968. Oxe—Dvoinik, Lower Petchora River, North-east 
Russia, 22 July, 1875. “J. A. H.-B.” From Mr. 
Harvie-Brown, 1876. 
The cift of Mr. Harvie-Brown, being from a nest of four, the first of the 
species obtained by him and his companion Mr. Seebohm, and found simul- 
taneously by the former and Piottuch, their interpreter, who had been with 
Mr. Harvie-Brown on his former expedition to Northern Russia in 1872. That 
gentleman has been so good as to favour me with a copy of an extract from his 
journal, afterwards printed im extenso in ‘The Ibis’ (1876, pp. 3802, 303), 
whence it appears that having just found some young birds of this species “ we 
proceeded to search for another nest, or more young, offering Simeon two rubies 
if he found a nest of eggs. Almost immediately Piottuch and I ran forward, 
he being a little in advance, and in a trice we had three more young, a little 
older than the first. Within fifteen yards of where we got these, a bird rose 
and we again ran forward. ‘Hurrah! Monsieur, les ceufs! les ceufs!’ (cried 
he, joyously) and the next instant we were sitting one on each side of the 
nest, the (parent) birds of both eggs and young flying round us, and alighting 
within twenty paces, neither of them so tame and fearless as the parents of the 
first nest of young. And the eggs ?—miniature Dunlins’, three dark and richly 
marked, the fourth lighter and more faintly streaked, but also just like one 
Dunlin’s in our collection at home taken in South Uist. And the nest ?— 
rather untidy, rather rough and uneven round its rim, very shallow, sparingly 
lined with dry grasses, and a little leaf or two which might have been plucked 
by the bird as she sat on her nest. Round it a deep spongy, but not wet, 
yellow moss (Sphagnum), the dark green leayes and empty calives of the 
PART III. p 
