506 THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



than the Little Stint ; such solitary individuals, however, as have 

 been shot in the course of May, at intervals of several years, 

 invariably have their breeding plumage in a very imperfeQt stage 

 of development, so that up to the present I have not succeeded in 

 obtaining a perfectly coloured specimen for niy collection. 



Young birds of the year are shot annually in August and Sep- 

 tember, but, as a rule, much less frequently than those of Tringa 

 'minuta of the same age. They frequent by preference a small 

 piece of fresh water on the Upper Plateau, where one never meets 

 with Tringa 'minuta, but which is invariably resorted to by the 

 old spring birds of the present species. From what one sees of this 

 bird on the island one would regard it as rather partial to fresh 

 water and grassy surfaces, whereas Tringa minuta appears to pre- 

 fer the sandy flats of the sea-shore. 



Temminck's Stint is found breeding from northern Scandinavia 

 to the Sea of Ochotsk. 



297. Sanderling [DREIZEHIGER STIIANDLAUFEK]. 

 TRINGA ARENARIA, Linn. 1 



Heligolandish : Witt Stennick White Sandpiper. 



Calidris arenaria. Naumann, vii. 353. 



Sanderling. Dresser, viii. 101. 



Sanderling variable. Temminck, Manuel, ii. 524, iv. 348. 



The name by which this handsome species is known in Heligo- 

 land proclaims the season of the year on which it is principally 

 seen on this island ; for greater or smaller flights of these birds, 

 in their pretty light-coloured plumage, are met with on the dune 

 throughout all the winter months. This light-coloured winter 

 dress presents a remarkable contrast to the dusky, almost black, 

 plumage of T. maritima, a species which occurs here at the same 

 time during the winter. It strikes one particularly when one 

 examines the two birds side by side in the fresh condition, as one 

 has frequent opportunities of doing during shooting excursions 

 in the winter. It has, however, always seemed to me that in 

 the white portions of the breeding plumage the colour is even 

 purer more of a snowy whiteness, in fact than one finds in the 

 winter garment. Unfortunately, individuals in the full breeding 

 dress are very rare here ; but the bird in this stage of plumage 

 occupies, on the score of beauty, a prominent place among its con- 

 geners. Individuals of this description only occur here in very 

 isolated instances towards the end of May ; the young speckled birds 



1 Calidris arenaria (Linn. ). 



