342 Contributions to the Ofnitliology of India, 8^c. 



As to its habitSj tliey are in no way different from those of 

 the rest of the family, and it is always met with feeding" on the 

 mud flats in company with the bar-tailed godwit, the turnstone, 

 oystercatchers, the sanderling- et id omne genus. I oug-ht to 

 note that Capt. Maiden thought he had obtained T. canutus: 

 at Kotree on the i4th November, 1867, bnt I cannot help sus- 

 pecting that his bird was the present species. 



882.— Tringa subarquata, Gould. 



The curlew stint was pretty abundant on the Sindh and Mek- 

 ran Coast, much less so however than the dunlin. While the 

 dunlin abounds on every large river of Upper India through- 

 out the cold season, I have never yet met with suharquata more 

 than one hundred miles from the sea coast, except at the great 

 Salt lake of Rajpootana at Sambhur, whence, as also from the 

 Yarkand river, I have it in summer plumage. It does not however 

 breed at Sambhur. 



883.— Tringa cinclus, h. 



The dunlin was abundant everywhere in the Indus, the 

 Kurrachee Harbour, along the Mekran Coast and all the large 

 rivers of the Punjab. The only inland piece of water on which I 

 noticed it was the Muncher Lake. 



884.— Tringa minuta, Leisler. 



This little stint was common in Sindh as it is throughout 

 India. Mr. Blyth in his Commentary on Jerdon^s Birds, liis^ 

 1867, p. 168, substitutes fov S. mi?mta correctly, as I think, given 

 by Dr. Jerdon, T. damacensis, Horsf. He does not explain the 

 grounds upon which this is done; but assuming his meaning 

 to be that damacensis and not minuta is the species which we 

 commonly obtain in India, I think that there is no doubt that he 

 is in error. 



I have the true minuta from the Mekran Coast, Kurrachee, 

 various parts of Sindh, the Punjab, the North-West Provinces> 

 Oudh, the Central Provinces, as far as Raipoor, and Bengal as 

 far east as Dacca. I have never seen damacensis from India, nor 

 do I think that the bird comes as far east. In Peninsular India 

 and Ceylon, it may occur, but all the specimens I have hitherto 

 seen labelled damacensis were the true minuta, or the slightly 

 larger oceanic race Tringa albescens, Temm which I am half dis- 

 posed to concur with Schlegel in uniting with minuta. 



It may be useful to point out the leading distinctions between 

 mimbta and damacensis, Horsf., ( = T. sub-mimda, Middendorff, and 

 salina, Pallas) as this latter is found throughout Eastern Asia, in 

 Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and other islands of the ArchipelagOj, 



