CHARADRIIDA. 587 
THE AMERICAN STINT. 
TRINGA MINUTILLA, Vieillot. 
The American Stint has been obtained in this country on three 
occasions. The first example was shot on a piece of wet grass-land 
adjoining the sea-shore in Mount’s Bay, Cornwall, on October roth 
1853, by W. S. Vingoe, who showed it to E. H. Rodd, by whom it 
was recorded in ‘The Zoologist,’ p. 4297 ; the occurrence being 
also noticed under the name of Zyinga pusilla in the Preface 
(p. vi) to the 3rd Edition of Yarrell’s ‘British Birds.’ In Sep- 
tember 1869 a second example was killed on Northam Burrows, 
near Bideford, by Mr. Rickards of Clifton (Zool. s.s. p. 2025), who 
brought the freshly-skinned specimen to Mr. Harting for his inspec- 
tion, and its identity has been vouched for by that competent authority 
(Hbk. Brit. Birds, p. 143). On August 22nd 1892—and also on 
Northam Burrows—another example was shot by Mr. Broughton 
Hawley, on whose behalf I exhibited it at a meeting of the 
Zoological Society (P. Z. S. 1893, p. 178). The date is erroneously 
given in ‘The Zoologist,’ 1892, p. 411, as 16th August ; that being 
the day on which Mr. Hawley first observed the bird. He informed 
me that our Little Stints did not arrive there until later. The species 
has, therefore, as good a claim as many other stragglers to be noticed 
in this work ; but it has not been considered necessary to figure it, 
as an engraving would not adequately show the points of difference 
between it and the Little Stint. The American bird is rather 
smaller, with a proportionately longer and more slender bill, while it 
is conspicuously darker at all seasons ; in the breeding-plumage the 
fore part of the chest is ashy-buff, with distinct spots of dark brown 
—not rufous with tiny dots as in Z. minuta ; and the legs are dusky 
olive-brown, whereas they are black in our Little Stint. 
This species, called by American ornithologists the Least Sand- 
piper, has visited Greenland, and is widely distributed through- 
out the Arctic portions of the New World, breeding as far south 
as Sable Island—a little below Nova Scotia, as well as in New- 
foundland, Labrador, and the northern regions generally as far west 
as Alaska. A limited number winter in the Gulf States, but the 
majority pass onward to Mexico, the West Indies, Central America 
