I 
BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 395 
on the stretches of sand, mud and shingle of our coast ; 
but later they gather into large flocks moving up and down 
the Solway Firth with the ebb and flow of the tide, and 
I i vie numerically with the Knots and Oyster-catchers. At this 
season of the year their numbers are temporarily reinforced 
by immigrants from further north. " Altogether," writes 
Mr. R. Service, " the Dunlin is an interesting study, whether 
we see it at its breeding stations on the merseland pools or 
around the moorland tarns in the wilder and lonelier lands 
r ... or see it rush along the shore on stormy winter days, 
\ now showing their dark upper wings to the observer or 
> turning up their silvery white under-parts as they glide past, 
or hear it on dark spring nights piping plaintively as parties 
of them migrate on their northward flight."* 
THE LITTLE STINT. Tringa minuta, Leislev. 
A rare and irregular visitor to our shores on the autumn-migration. 
I Sir William Jardine, in 1842, writing of this species as the 
\ "Minute Sandpiper," says, "Mr. Yarrell states, on the 
authority of Mr. Heysham, that they have been several 
times taken on the shores of the Solway. We have never 
been so fortunate as to meet with them there, nor do we hear 
of any instances of their capture in Scotland being recorded."! 
The Little Stint is recorded in 1887 as very seldom met 
with on our shores, $ and in 1886 WiUiam Hastings told 
Mr. R. Service that he had never received any specimens of 
this species for preservation. In 1894 H. A. Macpherson 
, wrote : " It is a curious fact that the Solway Firth is visited 
ahnost every year by certain species which are exceedingly 
rare on the West Coast of Scotland. ... The Little Stint 
! {Tringa minuta) is a species in point. A few Little Stints 
visit us every year, and we meet with them both on the 
I * Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasg., 1905, Vol. VIII., p. 52. 
t Nat. Lib., 1842, Vol. XII., p. 244. 
X Trans. D. and G. Nat. Hist. Soc, November 4th, 1887 
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