THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
has flooded the grass land, or where the tops of the water-grass and aquatic 
herbage just push their heads above the surface.”* 
“ Usually it is October before the Stints reach Wyangarie [Richmond 
District, North Queensland], and some seasons I do not catch sight of them 
tiU November ; however, this year (1906) a pair of them have broken aU their 
previous records by arriving here on 23rd September. They leave again in 
March as a rule, but I noted them here in 1900 on 6th April. 
“ They display a peculiar habit of jerking up their tails whilst feeding 
or when about to fly.”! 
“ Of this species I only obtained young specimens on Bering Island during 
the autumnal migration of 1882. From the middle of September and during 
the following three weeks they were observed both on the tundra near the 
great lake and on the rocky beach of the ocean searching for Gammarids. 
They were very shy and mostly single or in small families. Larger flocks 
were never seen.”§ 
Middendorff shot one in fuU breeding-dress on June 30th on the South 
coast of the Sea of Ochotsk. 
Swinhoe {Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.) 1863, p. 316) found it very common on 
marshes near Pekin in August ; a few at Amoy in April and May in almost 
full summer-dress. 
The immature bird figured and described was collected on Parry’s Creek, 
North-west Australia, on September 26th, 1908, by Mr. J. P. Rogers. 
There has recently been quite a confusion regarding the correct nomination 
of this bird, and as I am probably to blame for some of the confusion, I 
here endeavour to rectify it to the best of my judgment. 
Long known as Tringa acuininata, though Gould had introduced the 
genus Limnocinclus for the species, it then became familiarly accepted by 
American writers as Actodromas acuminata, probably following Coues’s lead 
when he referred the similar American bird, A. maculaia, to that genus. It 
was transferred by Sharpe (in the Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., Vol. XXIV., p. 566, 
1896) to Heteropygia along with maculata, though when Coues introduced 
Heteropygia he had dehberately retained maculata in Actodrmnas. From 
1896 to 1908 Australian and most other ornithologists accepted that 
combination. When Sharpe worked through the Watling Drawings {Hist. 
Coll. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.), Vol. II., p. 147, 1906), he wrote that Drawing 
No. 244, upon which was based Latham’s Tringa aurita, was a figure of 
* Bemey, Emu, Vol. IL, p. 213, 1903. 
f id., ib., Vol. VI., p. 114, 1907. 
J Keaxtland, Trans. Boy. Soc. South Austr., Vol. XXII., p. 160, 1898 
§ Stejneger, Bull. U.S. Nat. Mus., No. 29, p. 115, 1885. 
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