2So THE GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL 



or dive. The food of this Stint consists of insects and their 

 larvce, crustaceans, worms, and various small marine creatures ; 

 whilst in the Arctic regions the bird may also eat ground fruits 

 and small seeds. Its note at the nesting place is a rather shrill 

 whit, but in autumn and winter it utters a chirping cry. This 

 species probably has a trill during the pairing season ; but as 

 Messrs. Seebohm and Harvie-Brown did not reach the breeding 

 grounds of the Little Stint until after this event was over they 

 probably did not hear it. 



Nidification. — Von Middendorff was the first naturalist to 

 discover the breeding grounds of the Little Stint. Nearly fifty 

 years ago he met with it nesting on the Taimyr peninsula, at the 

 eastern limit of its known range. In 1875 Messrs. Seebohm and 

 Harvie-Brown discovered nesting places of this Stint at the delta 

 of the Petchora, and their interesting accounts of the breeding of 

 this bird in Europe were the first made known to British orni- 

 thologists. Since their discoveries, other breeding places have 

 been found in various parts of Arctic Europe, extending as far 

 west as the Porsanger fjord in Northern Norway. At the mouth 

 of the Petchora the breeding grounds of the Little Stint were 

 situated on a comparatively dry and gently sloping part of the 

 tundra close to the inland sea, at the mouth of the great river. 

 Here the tundra was thickly studded with tussocks of grass, and 

 the swampy ground was almost concealed by cotton-grass. These 

 grass tufts were covered with green moss, and smaller patches of 

 reindeer moss, the whole almost hidden with a thick growth of 

 cloud-berry and carices, dwarf shrubs, and sundry Arctic flowers, 

 Several of the nests discovered were quite close together. Other 

 nests were found on more sandy ground, full of small pools, and 

 covered with short grass and plants. The nest of the Little Stint 

 is merely a slight hollow in the ground, lined with a few dead 

 leaves of the cloud-berry, and other scraps of vegetable refuse. 

 The eggs are four in number, and vary in ground colour from 

 pale greenish gray to pale brown, spotted and blotched with rich 

 reddish brown, and with underlying markings of paler brown and 

 gray. Most of the spots and blotches are on the larger end of the 

 egg, as is usual in those of all Waders. They are pyriform, and 

 measure on an average I'l inch in length by '8 inch in breadth. 



