54 



between November and Marcb. In Arizona I met with none after October (Pr. A. N. S. Phil. 1866, 

 p. 61); but they were plenty, with the Semipalmated Sandpipers (Ereunetes pusillus), at San Pedro, 

 in Southern California, in November (Ibis, 1866, p. 269). Just how far north they can spend 

 the winter comfortably, I do not know, but presume this is a matter of temperature, and that 

 some linger wherever the ground does not become too hard with the cold for them to secure the 

 soft animal substances they feed upon. 



" However the case may stand in this respect, it is pretty certain that the Stints leave the 

 United States as one bird in the spring. I cannot point to a single recorded instance of their 

 breeding within our northern boundary. If they stopped to nest anywhere it would be on the 

 northern part of New England ; and yet all the diligent bird-folk of that section speak of the 

 Stints as birds of passage. For any thing that yet appears to the contrary, Mr. Allen is perfectly 

 right in placing this species among those whose breeding-range is limited to the southward by 

 the Hudsonian fauna. In the extremely valuable and interesting memoir already cited, Mr. 

 Allen (p. 400) defines this fauna as follows : — ' Its northern limit seems nearly to coincide with 

 the isothermal line of 50° F., its southern limit being the isothermal of 57°. ... It will include 

 at least the southern third of Labrador, the northern peninsula of Newfoundland, Anticosti 

 Island, the more elevated parts of the bight of land separating the lowlands bordering 

 Hudson's Bay from the lowlands of the St. Lawrence and the Winnipeg district, and the 

 basin of the Mackenzie's from Lake Athabasca to a point considerably north of Fort Simpson, 

 extending on the Mackenzie' s-river valley some distance within the Arctic circle, probably to 

 the Arctic coast. Extending still westward, it embraces the valleys of Leard's and Peel's rivers, 

 and probably the valley and adjoining lowlands of the Youkon, including the greater part of 

 that portion of the territory of Alaska which is situated to the southward of the Arctic circle — in 

 other words, the portion of Boreal America situated between the Canadian fauna and the barren 



grounds The Hudsonian fauna doubtless embraces outlying islands in the Canadian 



fauna, as the upper part of the White Mountains and the summits of some of the higher peaks 

 of the Adirondacks.' AVith these last, however, our bird can of course have nothing to do, 

 being unable to climb mountains and so substitute elevation for latitude, as many of the 

 Passeres do. 



" But, from this northern breeding-range, we must not hastily conclude that the Stint is not 

 seen during the summer in the United States. Such is its restlessness, and so swiftly are its 

 flights accomplished, that long before the summer is over the birds that departed in May are 

 again among us with the year's broods, thronging the beaches, and the muddy estuaries, and all the 

 watercourses of the interior. Where the July birds that I have seen even so far south as North 

 Carolina came from, I cannot tell. In that locality all the troops of Sandpipers of this and other 

 species are off by the 1st of June at the latest ; yet in about six weeks (somewhere about the 

 10th of July) a few of the Stints and the Semipalmated are seen, and their numbers increase in 

 August, though all these are in advance of the main body that comes in September. Can it be 

 that they have nested in the Hudsonian fauna and come back in so short a time 1 As I have 

 already said(Pr. A. N. S. Phil. 1871, p. 31) it is probable that these early comers are either those 

 that led the van in the spring migration, or those that from some cause or other did not complete 

 their migration or raise a brood. Another curious fact may be noted here. In July 1860 I found 



