886 
THING A MINUTA. 
It is very abundant in India, being especially numerous near the sea-coast, but frequenting also the 
borders of large rivers and tanks. Mr. Hume records it from “ various parts of Sindh, the Punjab, the North- 
west Provinces, Sindh, the Central Provinces as far as Raipur, and Bengal as far east as Dacca.’'’ In 1874, 
Mr. Ball, writing on the birds of Chota Nagpur, says it is the only species of Stint he obtained in that 
province ; but apparently, in his list published in c Stray Feathers/ vol. vii., the next species is substituted for it ; 
and Mr. Hume inserts it on his own authority from Raipur only. In the Deccan, however, which is a more 
inland district, Messrs. Davidson and Weuder say that it is very common in the cold weather. Captain Butler 
records it only from Deesa in the Guzerat province; but Mr. Adam asserts it to be very numerous at the 
Sambhur Lake in Jodhpore, remaining there until May, on the 25th of which month he has obtained it in full 
summer plumage. Non-breeding birds are stated by Captain Butler to be found at Kurrachee in the hot 
season ; and this is not to be wondered at when the same thing occurs in Ceylon. On the eastern side of the 
bay it is chiefly a sea-coast bird. Dr. Armstrong found it extremely abundant all along the sea-shore between 
Elephant Point and China Bakeer ; but it is not recorded from Upper Pegu. In Tenasserim it is rare and 
only found on the coast. In the Andamans it is not uncommon, and has been obtained there, as in Ceylon, in 
winter plumage during the month of June. In the Nieobars it was met with occasionally. 
Dr. Stoliezka observed it about swamps at Yarkand and Kashgar during the first half of the winter ; but 
it seems to have been passed over by Dr. Scully. In Turkestan proper it is found on passage in the northern 
and south-eastern districts, and is met with up to 4000 feet above the sea. It occurs, of course, on the 
Caspian ; and in Palestine Canon Tristram obtained it in winter. Mr. Seebohm found it breeding in the 
Yenesay valley, but did not see it south of lat. 71 J°. Dr. Finsch likewise met with it on the Podarata river 
N.W. Siberia. Von Mkldendorff found it common in the extreme north of Siberia on the Taimyr river, and 
likewise in the south-east of that country. As high up as lat. 74° he observed it on the 17th of June. Von 
Schrenck procured it on the Amoor and the Schilka, and he says that it is commoner in that region than 
T. temmincki. 
In the breeding-season it is spread over Northern Europe, having been procured and noticed on the 
White Sea, the Pctchora (where Messrs. Seebohm and Harvie Brown took its eggs), in Finland, Lapland, and 
Northern Scandinavia, and even in Nova Zembla and Waigats Island, where Von Heuglin met with it, in 
the latter place, as late as September. In Great Britain and Central Europe it is a bird of passage in spring 
and autumn, but it appears to be more commonly met with in the latter season than the former; this is the 
case both in England and Eastern Europe. In Sardinia it remains throughout the winter ; but in Southern 
Spain it is chiefly a bird of passage. Col. Irby found it in Andalucia, consorting with Dunlins and Ring- 
Dotterels ; and in Morocco he met with vast flocks of it. Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake likewise observed it in the latter 
country . In Egypt, it is, writes Captain Shelley, extremely abundant, frequenting both marshy grounds and 
sand banks. In the Sinai district Mr. Claude Wyatt procured it. Von Heuglin found it along the Nile and 
its tributaries, on the shores of the Red Sea, in the Gulf of Aden, and in the marshes of East Kordofan in 
autumn, winter, aud spring ; he met with it near Suez in breeding-plumage in May ; but all throughout 
North-eastern Africa he says it is not so abundant as Temminck’s Stint. Mr. E. Newton found it common 
in the island of Mahe in the Seychelles ; but I do not know that it has been seen in Madagascar. In South 
Africa it is common in winter. Captain Shelley found it in flocks in Cape colony ; and in Natal and the 
Transvaal Mr. Ayres also procured it, and saw it in numbers in some localities ; at Potchefstroom he obtained 
a specimen as late as the 10th April, which was commencing to assume the breeding-dress. Layard writes 
that it is common in all marshes and on the sea-board in Cape colony. 
Mr. Andersson records it from Damara Land ; and it has also been obtained in Benguela, on the Gold Coast 
in Sierra Leone, and at other places on the west coast. At Cape-Coast Castle Captain Shelley found it 
plentiful in spring. 
Habits . — This Stint associates in larger flocks than other species in Ceylon, and is in this respect, as well 
as in its general habits, very like the Dunlin. When feeding on the ooze or at the edge of the tide, in the 
salt lakes and lagoons which it frequents, it does not “pack” closely together, but remains in scattered 
company, so that a flock of fifty or more covers a good extent of ground. When alarmed, the whole rise at 
once and glance off with arrow-like speed, coming together on the wing, and then, perhaps, making a sharp 
