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plenty of the Stints breeding in Labrador ; and they had not all left that country at the end of 

 August, when I did. We are puzzled by facts like these in attempting to trace the species along 

 even a single line of migration. Taking the Atlantic coast, for example, we have seen the birds 

 wintering in Florida, and even South Carolina. Then the tide flows northward in April, and 

 through this month and the next they abound along the beaches. April appears to be chiefly 

 passed in the middle districts, as New England is generally entered only by the 1st of May ; yet 

 even to the end of that month they linger in North Carolina. We may presume that a part of 

 the birds keep directly on, reaching their breeding-places by the end of May, and that at about 

 this time the lingerers sweep after, so that all have made the journey some time early in 

 June — that they then breed at different times in June and July, according to the date of their 

 arrival — that the return of the greater number is directly after the young are grown, many, 

 however, lingering until driven away by the approach of cold. Some such allowance as this 

 for individual, and not concerted, movement seems reasonable, and so perhaps sufficient to 

 explain why the birds are altogether absent only about six weeks in summer even from North 

 Carolina. 



"Audubon, who, like others, found the Stint breeding plentifully in Labrador among the 

 mossy rocks near the seashore, has given a good notice of the nest and eggs. ' The nest,' he 

 says, ' had been formed first, apparently, by the patting of the little creature's feet on the crisp 

 moss ; and in the slight hollow thus produced were laid a few blades of slender dry grass, bent in 

 a circular manner, the internal diameter of the nest being two inches and a half, and its depth 

 an inch and a quarter. The eggs measured seven and a half eighths of an inch in length, and 

 three fourths of an inch in breadth. Their ground-colour was a rich cream-yellow tint, blotched 

 and dotted with very dark umber, the markings larger and more numerous toward the broad 

 end. . . . The nest lay under the lee of a small rock, exposed to all the heat the sun can 

 afford in that country.' 



" It seems almost superfluous to speak of the habits and manners of so well-known a bird as 

 this, the more so since it is improbable that they differ in any particular from those of its European 

 congener. The Stints, however, are so gregarious, so socially disposed towards other birds of the 

 tribe, and they frequent the sandy beaches of the seashore in such immense hordes, that another 

 of their traits, and one more Snipe-like, is frequently overlooked. No matter how many 

 thousands of them whirl along the beaches with the Semipalmated, the Knots, Dunlins, and 

 Sanderlings, even following the retreating waves like these birds, they are essentially birds of 

 the mud rather than of the sand. The black oozy places in the flat marshes behind the beach, 

 the sloughs and ditches that cut up the places where samphire and rushes grow, and the loamy 

 banks of rivulets and ponds in the interior are favourite resorts. Here, too, they ofteu go in 

 flocks ; but quite as frequently they spring up alone as we pass along, with a shrill startling tweet, 

 and dash off twisting like a Snipe ; and then they are quite as hard to shoot. They generally 

 become extremely fat in the fall, and are delicious morsels, though it seems a pity to take such 

 a pretty and harmless life just for one bite. Except when they are suddenly frightened by an 

 unexpected approach, they show little fear of man, and often run heedlessly about his very feet. 

 When in flocks their movements are generally simultaneous ; and they make a pretty picture as 

 as they wheel swiftly, now disappearing against the dull colour of the strand, now flashing into 



