426 



TE1NGA. 



Literature. Plates. — Daub. PI. Enl. nos. 851, 852; Gould, Birds Gt. Brit. iv. pis. 69, 70; Dresser, Birds 



of Europe, viii. pi. 548. 

 Habits. — Seebohm, British Birds, iii. p. 18i. 

 Eggs. — Seebohm, British Birds, pi. 31. figs. 1, 2. 



Specific 

 characters. 



Geographi- 

 cal distribu- 

 tion. 



Nearest 

 allies. 



The Dunlin belongs to the section of the genus Tringa which has a great deal of 

 white on the seventh, eighth, and ninth secondaries (next the tertials), but little or none on 

 the central upper tail-coverts. The only other species in the section are T. arenaria and 

 T. maritima (the latter including its two subspecific allies). Prom the former it may easily 

 be distinguished by its hind toe, and from the latter by its black legs. 



The Dunlin is probably the only species of Tringa which breeds in the British 

 Islands. It is a regular summer visitor to the Orkney and Shetland Islands, to the Outer 

 Hebrides, and to the West of Scotland ; but in England and Ireland it is principally known 

 as a winter visitor, though a few pairs are said still to breed on the Northumberland moors, 

 the mountains of the Lake district, the Cheshire marshes, the Welsh mountains, the 

 Cornish moors, and the Irish bogs. 



The Dunlin is a circumpolar bird, breeding throughout the arctic regions of both 

 continents — in Asia up to lat. 74°, but in America probably not so far north. It breeds 

 in Greenland, on Iceland, and the Faroes, and in suitable localities throughout Scandinavia, 

 Denmark, Finland, and the Baltic Provinces. An isolated instance is on record of its 

 having bred in Spain ; and I have an egg in my collection out of a clutch of four from 

 which the bird was shot by Mr. Abel Chapman in the marshes of the Guadalquivir. It 

 winters in the basin of the Mediterranean, in Spain and Portugal, and in North Africa ; 

 on the west coast it has not been found further south than the Canaries, but on the east 

 coast it is said to cross the line to Zanzibar. On migration it passes along the valleys of 

 the Kama and the Volga, and through Turkestan, to winter on the southern shores of the 

 Caspian and the Mekran coast. I did not meet with it in the valley of the Yenesay until 

 lat. 69° ; Dybowski did not obtain it near Lake Baikal, neither has it occurred in the 

 valley of the Amoor except near the coast. It passes on migration along the east coast of 

 Siberia, visiting Japan and North China, and winters in South China, Formosa, Borneo, 

 and Java. It has not occurred in Burma, and is only a rare visitor to the coasts of North 

 India. On the American continent it migrates along both coasts, and winters in the 

 Southern States and in the West Indies. 



It is somewhat remarkable that a bird which breeds so far north should seldom if 

 ever winter in the southern hemisphere ; but it must be remembered that the breeding- 

 range of no other Tringa extends so far south. 



It is the only Tringa which has a black belly, but this peculiarity is confined to the 

 breeding-plumage. It is probably nearest allied to Tringa maritima ptilocnemis, which 

 has somewhat obscurely developed dark patches on the breast in breeding-plumage. 



