32 



mottled with dark brown centres to the feathers ; chest whitish, very slightly washed with grey, and 

 speckled with brown on the sides. 



(b) Temminck's Stint (Winter). Upper surface uniform greyish brown; chest entirely ashy grey, with a few 



white margins to the feathers. 



(c) Little Stint (Autumn). Head and back washed with rufous; scapulars broadly edged with black ; chest 



slightly inclining to ashy, washed with delicate buff. 

 (c) Temminck's Stint (Autumn) . Upper surface greyish brown with no rufous, but the feathers more or less 

 distinctly margined with buff, and no white markings at all ; chest decidedly ashy brown. 



Explanation of the Plate. The illustration facing the present article represents the Little Stint and 

 Temminck's Stint, each in full summer dress. 



Obs. As we have now before us a very fine series of Stints from all parts of the world, representing 

 probably every species of these pigmy waders, it may not be out of place to add a few words on the 

 material which the kindness of many friends has placed at our disposal. In the third volume of the 

 ' Hand-list,' Mr. G. R. Gray enumerates the following different species (p. 50) : — \,.T. minuta, Leisl. ; 

 2, T. albescens, Temm.; 3, T. salina, Pall.; 4, T. australis, Cuv. ; 5, T. temminckii, Leisl.; 6, T. 

 wilsonii, Nutt. ; 7, T. minutilla, Vieill. ; 8, T. fuscicollis, Vieill. ; of these we are able to distinguish but 

 five, as follows : — 



Summer Plumage. 



A. Outer tail-feather pale ashy brown. 



a. Quills with white shafts. 



a'. Throat white ; breast sparsely spotted with brown and tinged with rufous . 1 . minuta. 

 b'. Chin only whitish ; breast thickly spotted with brown and tinged with ashy 



fulvous 2. minutilla. 



c'. Entire throat and breast rich rufous, the latter slightly mottled with 



brownish 3. albescens. 



b. Quills with brown shafts 4. salina. 



B. Outer tail-feather pure white o. temmincki. 



The descriptions given at the commencement of this article will, we trust, render the' recognition of 

 Tringa minuta in Europe an easy matter ; and we pass on at once to the consideration of T. minutilla, which 

 has been obtained twice in England. 



T. minutilla. In his paper on the Tringece of North America (Proc. Phil. Acad. 1861, p. 170), Dr. Elliott 

 Coues gives an admirable account of this species, which we thoroughly indorse, and we do not agree with 

 Mr. G. R. Gray in the distinctness of T. wilsonii from T. minutilla. We have now before us an excellent 

 series from different parts of Northern and Central America, and we can confidently assert that the birds 

 constitute an entirely distinct species from T. minuta of Europe; and we suspect that T. fuscicollis, founded 

 on the Chorlito pestorejo pardo of Azara, from Paraguay, is nothing but the present bird in winter plumage. 

 Independently of its small size, the style of dress in the breeding-season is quite different, being almost entirely 

 black above with a very slight admixture of rufous, whereas in T. minuta the prevailing colour is rufous at this 

 season of the year ; on the breast also the coloration is different, the chin and abdomen being dull white, and 

 the fore part of the chest ashy buff, covered with little dots of dark brown, whereas in T. minuta the chest is 

 rufous mixed with ashy, with tiny little brown markings. The American Stint is in fact a much darker bird; 

 and this peculiarity is likewise exhibited in the young, which, although coloured as in T. minuta, is much 

 blacker, with very narrow rufous edgings, and scarcely any white margins as in the last-named bird; the 



