90 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 



212. BROAD-BILLED SAND-PIPER (Tringa platyrhynca). 

 Fully as rare as the last. 



213. LITTLE STINT (Tringa Minuta). 

 Not to be described altogether as a rare little bird, for it 

 seems to be met with sometimes in Autumn on the Southern and 

 Eastern coasts in some numbers, and even in flocks of twenty 

 or thirty together. They are often seen in company with the 

 Dunlin or other small shore-birds. Very little is known about 

 their breeding places or habits. 



214. TEMMINCK'S STINT (Tringa TemmincMi). 

 Less even than the last named small bird, and much more 

 rare ; besides which it frequents fresh waters rather than the 

 sea-shore. No very great number of them, however, has been 

 met with in England. 



214*. SCHINZ'S SAND-PIPER (Tringa Schinzii). 



A very rare bird. 

 215. PECTORAL SAND-PIPER (Tringa pectoralis). 



Another rare Sandpiper ; and, like the last, a native of America. 

 216. DUNLIN (Tringa variabilis). 



Dunlin Sandpiper, Purre, Churr, Stint, Oxbird, Sea Snipe, 

 Least Snipe, Sea Lark. Perhaps the very commonest and best 

 known, as well as incomparably the most abundant of all our 

 small shore birds, and yet the one about which heaps of scientific 

 mistakes have been made. The male has a conspicuous wedding- 

 dress, which he duly puts on in the Spring, and once it was on 

 he was christened Tringa Alpina, the Dunlin. Then in the 

 autumn and winter, having divested himself alike of his summer 

 dress and all property or concern in wife and children, he was 

 named anew Tringa Cinclus, the Purre. On its being satisfactorily 

 ascertained that the only real difference between Dunlin and 

 Purre was that of a few feathers, and those chiefly on the 

 breast, and dependent simply on Season, the new name at th& 

 head of this notice was suggested and willingly adopted as 

 altogether a fit one. The Dunlin, always called Oxbird where 

 my boyhood was spent, and often seen there in flocks of not 

 simply hundreds, but thousands and many thousands in the 

 autumn and winter, goes to the far north to breed, though some 

 of their hosts stay iti the north of Scotland, the Hebrides, 

 Orkneys and other Islands near. Their nests are placed on the 

 ground, among long grass and ling, and always contain four 

 eggs. Mr. Hewitson <?ay<? : " In beauty of colouring and ele 



