The Little Stint. "^ 



true one, i.e., because ttey could not have far to go. Von Middendorf has been 

 held to be the first naturalist who had the good fortune to gaze on the eggs of 

 the Little Stint (he found them on the Taimyr River, 70° N, on June 17th, 1851). 

 But as he speaks of them exactly like " those figured by Thienemann," it is 

 evident that vixere fortes ante Agamemnona. In 1875, Seebohm and Harvie-Brown 

 took the eggs on the Petchora (in Europe), since when they have been obtained 

 near Archangel (Henke), Northern Norway (Collett), Kara Gulf (Finsch), Kolguiev 

 (Trevor- Batty e), and by our party, in 1895, on the same island. The Little Stint 

 breeds from Northern Norway to the Taimyr Peninsula, east of which it is replaced 

 by two allied species (^T. ruficollis, with a bright chestnut head and neck in 

 summer, and T. subminuta, with a longer, light yellow-brown leg and foot, and 

 long toes). The present species may breed in Novaya Zemlya (we did not see it 

 there), but all its known breeding places, which are rather sporadic and local, are 

 on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. It passes southwards early in autumn (my 

 note books give August 22nd, '88, August 22nd, '89, August 30th, '92, for the 

 Yorkshire coast, as the earliest I have met with), being very much commoner on 

 our east coasts than on the west. It passes overland as well, through Europe and 

 Asia, wintering in Africa, down to the extreme south, Palestine, Arabia, India, 

 and Ceylon. 



Description of adults in summer (Kolguiev, E. Finmark, Russian Lapland, 

 ^ ^ * 9 ? ) : bill black ; iris umber-brown ; sides of head, and upper parts generally, 

 of a warm rufous, caused by broad margins of this colour on all the feathers, 

 which on the crown, scapulars, and tertiaries, have black centres, and on the 

 scapulars small white tips ; primaries, secondaries, and greater coverts, dusky grey- 

 brown, with white shafts and obscure white tips ; four central tail feathers black, 

 with rufous margins, the rest grey, greyer towards the outside, but never white ; 

 throat white; chest rufous, mixed with white, with dark grey centres to most of 

 the feathers; rest of under parts white; legs and feet black. Length 5 J- 6 inches, 

 closed wing 3f ; female a shade the largest. 



In autumn adults are darker on the back, owing to the chestnut edges of the 

 feathers being lost, and lighter underneath, owing to the rufous and dark spots 

 having vanished. 



In winter the upper parts are ashy brown, with scarcely a trace of rufous 

 left; a broad white eye-brow; under parts pure white. 



Young take the autumn dress of the adult, but have broad white tips to 

 many of the feathers of the upper parts, especially scapulars, and the upper breast 

 tinged with dusky. 



Nestlings are mottled with rufous and black down .... tips silvery white or 



