FEATHERED TOURISTS 



female, has the right foot bent far over and stiff- 

 ened. The other is a male and has lost the entire 

 right foot, toes and metatarsus, the limb having 

 healed at the tarsal joint. The plucky bird balances 

 perfectly and stumps easily about, feeding and 

 holding its own in every way. Strangest of all, 

 its fellows often quarrel among themselves over 

 a rich find of sand-hoppers, but all give way to the 

 cripple. 



June 7th, 1930 — Nine turnstones on South 

 Beach, one of them the identical cripple seen a year 

 ago, a male in normal plumage. 



May 17th, 1931 — Three cripples among a flock 

 of ten birds. Two of these I saw in 1929 and one last 

 year. A diagram I made at the time, of the peculiar 

 arrangement of the inbent toes of the female and a 

 hardened, inward projecting flap of skin seen at the 

 stump of the male's leg, leave no possibility of doubt 

 of the individual identity. 



August 17th, 1931 — Of four turnstones, three 

 are cripples, one a new one with the left leg hanging 

 loose, swinging about, so the bird has either to hop 

 or squat flat. It is a male in good plumage, and feeds 

 as well as a normal bird. The tarsal-stump male is 

 the same seen in 1929 and 1930. 



We know how the slightest handicap of abnormal 

 structure or even color is usually soon fatal to a 

 bird, slain either by keen-eyed hawk or by the sav- 

 age assaults of its own kind. Yet here were birds 

 migrating year after year, holding their own and 

 undisturbed by members of their flock; cripples 



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