132 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



those of Temrainck's Stint, but are in every respect miniature Dunlin's eggs." 

 This statement must be received with caution, as has been already hinted in the 

 article on the Little Stint. We found that the eggs of the two birds cannot be 

 infallibly separated from one another by the ground colour, or any other test ; and 

 the only wa}- to be absolutely certain to which species they belong, is to identify 

 the parent. Professor Collett has never shot the female Temminck's Stint off the 

 nest, so it will be well to state that of the three birds shot by us, on June 24th, 

 '95, off the nine nests we found by Lake Yokan (or Ukanskoe), two were males, 

 the third was a female, which was carefully sexed by me by dissection, and is now 

 in my collection. (From A. Chapman's foot-note, to page 295 in " Wild Norway," 

 which has appeared since I wrote the foregoing, his experience would seem to 

 have been similar to my own). The eggs measure ItV by a shade over |- inches, 

 being, therefore, a trifle larger, as a general rule, than those of the Little Stint. 



The food of Temminck's Stint consists of flies, beetles, and other insects, with 

 fresh water larvae. As has been stated, it is much more fiuviatile, or lacustrine, 

 in its haunts and food, than marine ; and this accounts for its occurring so often 

 inland, and for its migration across countn.-, e.g., across Central Burope and Asia. 

 Its ordinary note is a plain shrill chirp, much like that of the Little Stint, Red- 

 necked Phalarope, or Sanderling. But at its breeding* quarters it has a distinctive 

 song, which has always attracted the notice of ornithologists. Wolley, who was 

 the first to find the nest (at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia), compares the note 

 to that of the Grasshopper Warbler, a comparison I find singularly inadequate, the 

 only resemblance lying in the fact that both songs consist of a trill. The note of 

 Temminck's Stint, however, is not nearly so monotonous and unvarying — so dry 

 and harsh — as that of the other bird, but is really a very musical little warble. 

 Sometimes it is uttered in the descending phase of a series of manoeuvres, like 

 those of a drumming Snipe, but not at so great an altitude, nor in such wide 

 circles — sometimes during short flights near the nest, or on the feeding ground, 

 during which it has a curious and characteristic flutter of uplifted wings, the body 

 being meanwhile stationary for a few seconds in the air, like that of a balancing 

 Kestrel, but the points of the wings close together. Sometimes, but more rarely, 

 the bird utters its prett}- song when perched on the top of a boulder, or other 

 elevation. I cannot tell whether the male or the female, or both, utter this prettiest 

 of all Limicoline birds' songs. I watched for an hour, or more, a number of these 

 birds feeding in a small marsh (they were not nesting there, though it was the 

 season for eggs), and during this time one or more would be "vocalising" at the 

 same moment, but I did not care to disturb the party to settle the point. 



