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TEINGA MINUTA. 



APPENDIX A. 



The same may be said as to the information on record up to date respecting the nidification of 

 the present species as is stated in the Appendix to Squatarola helvetica. When the article on 

 the Little Stint was issued nothing was known about its nidification, except what is published by 

 Von Middendorff ; and as that author did not discriminate between Tringa albescens and the 

 present species, there is a remote possibility that his notes may refer to that species, and not to 

 T. minuta. However, I am now enabled to give the most concise details respecting the breeding- 

 habits of the Little Stint, which was found breeding within the boundaries of Europe, on the 

 Petchora river, in North Russia, by Messrs. Seebohm and Harvie-Brown, who, amongst other 

 extreme rarities, brought back its eggs, as well as the young in down. 



I am indebted to Mr. Seebohm for the following interesting account of the discovery made 

 by his friend and himself: — " Of all the discoveries which my friend Harvie-Brown and I made 

 in the Petchora during our visit there in 1875, there was nothing to which we devoted more 

 time and trouble, and which gave us greater pleasure, then the discovery of the breeding-place 

 of the Little Stint; and after all we found it almost by a fluke. In 1872 Alston and Harvie- 

 Brown procured a specimen of this interesting bird in full summer plumage on an island in the 

 delta of the Dvina on 21st June; and in the same year Collett found it common on the island 

 of Tamso, in the Porsangerfjord, in July; and we had made up our minds that we would strain 

 every nerve to bring home eggs of the Little Stint, especially as no authenticated specimens were 

 known to exist in the cabinet of any ornithologist. 



"As soon as the ice on the great river Petchora broke up, migratory waders began to arrive in 

 small parties ; and we shot considerable numbers of them as they fed upon the grassy banks of the 

 swollen stream, in the hope of finding the Little Stint, but in vain. The Wood-Sandpiper and 

 Temminck's Stint arrived on 26th May, and were soon common enough. A few days afterwards 

 we met with the Terek and the common Sandpiper ; and before we reached the delta we found 

 Temminck's Stint breeding sparingly on the banks of the river. At Alexievka and the adjacent 

 islands the latter bird was abundant, and by the middle of July we had taken young in down ; 

 but up to this date we had seen no trace whatever of the Little Stint. Nevertheless we did not 

 despair. On the tundra opposite Alexievka we found the Dunlin and the Grey Plover breeding 

 — two birds that we had not seen at all on migration ; so that it was obvious that many birds 

 did not pass Ust Zylma on their way to the tundra. We consoled ourselves with the theory that 

 these birds, as well as the Little Stint, were more maritime in their habits than Temminck's 

 Stint and the other waders we had seen at Ust Zylma, and would probably come round by the 

 Baltic or the coast of Norway. The Grey Plover and the Dunlin we supposed would ascend 

 the Petchora to their breeding-grounds ; but the Little Stint, being still more maritime in its 

 habits, would probably breed on some of the islands at the mouth of the great river. This 

 opinion we afterwards gave up altogether. There is no doubt that most birds migrate direct to 



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