146 STEPSILAS INTERPRES. 



among the fuci, in the crevices of the rocks, and among the 

 stones and gravel, seldom or never making their appearance 

 on the sands or in muddy places. Their flight is like that of 

 the Oyster-catcher, rapid on occasion, performed by regularly 

 timed beats, often direct, but frequently in semicircular 

 curves. They run about with great celerity, occasionally 

 utter a mellow note, and sometimes associate with Kinged 

 Plovers and Oyster-catchers, although when flying they gene- 

 rally keep apart. Owing to the pure white on their back, 

 the bar of the same colour on the wings, the blackish tint of 

 the upper parts, and the form of their long pointed wings, 

 they present a very beautiful appearance when flying. It is 

 not less interesting to watch them as they are feeding on the 

 shore, when, however, I have not observed them turning over 

 the stones, as it is alleged they do. I have indeed seen them 

 on stony beaches, where frequently Ring Plovers were also 

 engaged in searching for food, and have observed them poking 

 their bills into the spaces between the stones, and extracting 

 small objects from the crevices ; and had nearly given up 

 their alleged stone-turning habits as a fable. But Mr. 

 Audubon, in the fourth volume of his Ornithological Biogra- 

 phy, relates an actually observed instance of the fact. On 

 a beach in Galveston Island, he and a sailor, carrying the 

 carcass of a deer to the water to be washed, met with four 

 Turnstones. " They merely ran a little distance out of our 

 course, and on our returning, came back immediately to the 

 same place ; this they did four different times, and, after we 

 were done, they remained busily engaged in searching for 

 food. None of them was more than fifteen or twenty yards 

 distant, and I was delighted to see the ingenuity with which 

 they turned over the oyster-shells, clods of mud, and other 

 small bodies left exposed by the retiring tide. Whenever 

 the object was not too large, the bird bent its legs to half 

 their length, placed its bill beneath it, and with a sudden 

 quick jerk of the head pushed it off, when it quickly picked 

 up the food which was thus exposed to view, and walked 

 deliberately to the next shell to perform the same operation. 

 In several instances, when the clusters of oyster-shells or 

 clods of mud were too heavy to be removed in the ordinary 



