T RING A SUBMINUTA. 
891 
banks and edges of ponds, and in flocks of from ten to thirty." About Calcutta in the cold season it is to 
be found in equal numbers with the Little Stint. Mr. Ball records it from Sambalpur and Lohardugga, 
which are the only two localities as yet published in which it has occurred. As a matter of necessity, 
however, it must be, to a certain extent, located along the east coast of the peninsula, by which route it 
travels south to Ceylon. It is unknown in the north-west of the empire, and we have no record of its 
occurrence on the west coast. As it is a bird of eastern distribution, it is, no doubt, more common on the 
eastern side of the Bay of Bengal, and will, when that region has been more thoroughly examined, be found 
along the coast of Tenasserim and the Malay peninsula. At present it has only been obtained at Tonghoo by 
Capt. Ramsay, and at Tliatone and Yea, in Tenasserim, by Mr. Davison, hurt her south it has been procured 
at Malacca; and in Java it was obtained by Kuhl, Van Hasselt, and Horsfield. Its range extends to Borneo, 
where Schwaner obtained it, and thence to Celebes, beyond which island it has not as yet been met with. 
Its summer quarters are North-eastern Siberia and Amoor Land, from which region it was described 
by Middendorff. It does not, liow'ever, appear to be abundant in such places which have been visited, and 
its true breeding-home has evidently not been discovered. Von Middendorff met with only two examples 
in all his travels ; one was procured on the western slopes of the Stanowoi Mountains, and the other at 
the mouth of the Uda; both were shot in the summer, and they form the types of his T. subminuta. 
Schrenck likewise procured one pair only on the Amoor river, near the mouth of the Ssungari tributary, 
on the I9th of July. Prjevalsky says that it inhabits the whole of South-east Mongolia, with the 
exception of the Ala-shan ; but he did not sec it at all in Kan-su and about Koko-nor. Mr. Blakiston 
procured it in Kamtchatka and also in Yezo. Swinhoe obtained it on the China coast and in Formosa, and 
remarks that it passes down early and returns late. It extends eastwards to the Philippines, w’here Dr. Meyer 
procured a specimen in Luzon in February, which is noticed by Lord Tweeddale in his list of Philippine 
birds. 
Habits . — This pretty little Stint, though affecting the vicinity of the sea-shore, is more of a marsh-bird 
than other members of its genus in Ceylon. Its favourite resort in the Trincomalie district was the salt 
marshes bordering the ooze surrounding the lagoons ; these are covered for about an hour before and after 
the flood, and are overgrown with rank grass and intersected with little pools and watercourses leading to 
the muddy foreshore. I frequently met with the Long-toed Stint at these spots in company with Totanus 
stugnatilis and T. glareola, three or four individuals being the usual number mixed up with half a dozen of 
these Sandpipers. When feeding at the edge of the ooze, or upon it, it generally consorted with its more 
numerous relative the Little Stint. At times I have seen it in small parties of six or a dozen feeding in 
“ extended order ” in long grass, which concealed them from my approach, and I then flushed them close to 
mv feet, like so many Snipe. In the summer season, when they were seen in the Hambantota district, 
they were on the shores of the leways, associating with Curlew Stints and T. minuta. When I met with them 
in the paddy-fields in the south of Ceylon they were found mixing with Wood-Sandpipers and feeding on 
the newly upturned mud ; and the stomachs of those I shot contained small insects and animalculse. Else- 
where I have seen it round isolated pools or paddy-fields near the sea, and have noticed it consorting with 
the Ringed Plover {/Egialiiis curonica ) . Its note is a weak trilling whistle, resembling in tone that of most 
Stints, and not unlike that of the Dunlin, but much weaker of course ; it is not so loud as that of T. minuta. 
Its flight is very swift, and when a little flock are proceeding at a great pace in close company they turn 
and twist, alternately showing the upper and lower plumage in the same manner as the Little Stint. The 
stomachs of all the specimens examined contained a large quantity of gravel mixed with the diet partaken of, 
which consists chiefly of small aquatic insects and also flies which they pick off the grass. 
I know nothing of its nidification and am not aware that its eggs have ever been found. 
In ‘ The Ibis,’ 1864, p. 420, Swinhoe mentions having seen what he considered to be an example of T. albescens in 
the Museum of the Asiatic Society at Colombo. In this collection, however, there were, at that time, birds from other 
localities than Ceylon ; and therefore the presence of a specimen in it was not a certain guarantee that its habitat was 
Ceylon. 
