206 BRITISH BIRDS. 



often performs very graceful evolutions in the air, every bird actuated by 

 one impulse, now turning their backs, then their pure white underparts to 

 the observer, as the flock rises, spreads out, closes, or wheels, like a gigantic 

 animated net. 



The food of the Little Stint is composed of insects of various kinds and 

 their larvae, worms, crustaceans, and other small marine animals. It also 

 feeds on small seeds, and in summer berries and small ground-fruits are 

 probably eaten. 



Of all the discoveries which my friend Harvie-Brown and I made in the 

 Petchora during our visit there in 1875, there was nothing to which we 

 devoted more time and trouble, and which gave us greater pleasure, than 

 the discovery of the breeding-place of the Little Stint ; and after all we 

 found it almost by a fluke. In 1872 Alston and Harvie-Brown procured a 

 specimen of this interesting bird in full summer plumage on an island in 

 the delta of the Dvina on the 21st of June ; and in the same year Collett 

 found it common on the island of Tamso, in the Porsangerfjord, in July ; 

 and we had made up our minds that we would strain every nerve to bring 

 home eggs of the Little Stint, especially as no authenticated specimens 

 were known to exist in the cabinet of any ornithologist. 



As soon as the ice on the great river Petchora broke up, migratory 

 Waders began to arrive in small parties ; and we shot considerable numbers 

 of them as they fed upon the grassy banks of the swollen stream, in the 

 hope of finding the Little Stint, but in vain. The Wood-Sandpiper and 

 Temminck's Stint arrived on the 26th of May, and were soon common 

 enough. A few days afterwards we met with the Terek and the Common 

 Sandpipers ; and before we reached the delta we found Temminck's Stint 

 breeding sparingly on the banks of the river. At Alexievka and the adja- 

 cent islands the latter bird was abundant, and by the middle of July we 

 had taken young in down; but up to this date we had seen no trace 

 whatever of the Little Stint. Nevertheless we did not despair. On the 

 tundra opposite Alexievka we found the Dunlin and the Grey Plover 

 breeding two birds that we had not seen at all on migration; so that 

 it was obvious that many birds did not pass Ust Zylma on their way to 

 the tundra. We consoled ourselves with the theory that these birds, as 

 well as the Little Stint, were more maritime in their habits than Tem- 

 minck's Stint and the other Waders we had seen at Ust Zylma, and would 

 probably come round by the Baltic or the coast of Norway. 



It was not until the middle of July that we were able to visit the 

 islands at the mouth of the Petchora. Alexievka is the lading-port of the 

 Petchora Timber-trading Company. Every autumn ships arrive to load 

 with larch for Cronstadt; and to enable those ships to enter the lagoons of 

 the Petchora, and navigate its difficult waters, various beacons and other 

 signals have to be placed on sundry islands, promontories, and sand-banks. 



