H^MA TOPODID^ — STREPSILAIN^ : TURNSTONES. 609 



Analysis of Species. 



Pied with black, wlilte, and chestnut ; feet orange interpres 598 



Blaclcish and white ; feet dark ? melanocephalus 599 



598. S. inter'pres. (Lat. interpres, a factor, agent, go-betweeu. Fig. 423.) Turnstone. Brant 

 Bird. Calico-back. Adult <J, in breeding dress: Pied above with black, white, brown, 

 and chestnut-red ; below, snowy, with jet breast. Top of head streaked with black and wliite. 

 Forehead, cheeks, sides of head and back of neck, white, with a bar of black coining up from 

 the side of neck to below eye, then coining forward and meeting or tending to meet its fellow 

 over base of bill, enclosing or nearly enclosing a white loral, and another black pn^longation 

 on side of neck ; lower eye-lid white or not. Lower hind neck, interscapulars and scapulars, 

 pied with black and chestnut ; back, rump, and upper tail-coverts, snowy-white, with a large 

 central blackish field on the latter. Tail white, with broad subterminal buckish field, 

 narrowing on outer feathers and incomplete, widening to usually cut oft" white tips of central 

 feathers. Wing-coverts and long inner secondaries pied like the scapulars with black and 

 chestnut, the greater coverts broadly white-tipped or mostly white, the short inner secondaries 

 entirely white, the rest acquiring dusky on their ends to increasing extent, with result of a 

 broad oblique white wing-bar. Primaries blackish, the longer ones with large white fields on 

 inner webs, the shorter ones also definitely white on outer webs for a space, the shafts white 

 unless at end; primary coverts white-tipped. Under parts, including under wing-coverts, 

 snowy-white, the breast and jugulum jet-black, enclosing a white throat-patch, and sending 

 limbs on sides of head and neck as above said. Bill black ; iris black ; feet orange. 9 similar, 

 lacking much of the chestnut, replaced by plain brown, especially on the wing-coverts ; the 

 dark parts in same pattern, but restricted somewhat, the black not jet and glossy. Adults in 

 winter, and young, lacking the chestnut entirely, the black mostly replaced by browns and 

 grays, that of the breast especially restricted or very imperfect. Length 8.00-9.00 ; extent 

 16.00-19.00 ; wing 5.50-6.00 ; tail 2.50 ; bill O.SO-0.90 ; tarsus, or middle toe and claw, about 

 1.00. Nearly cosmopolitan ; in N. Am., both coasts abundantly, and infrequently on the larger 

 inland waters ; migrating through and wintering in the U. S., breeding in high latitudes. 

 599. S. melanoce'phalus. (Gr. fieKas, melas, black ; Kec^oKr), Jiepliale, head.) Black-headed 

 Turnstone. Without any of the chestnut coloration of the last, the parts that are pied in 

 interpres being blackish ; the white parts, however, and the distribution of the colored areas, 

 nearly the same. In the most perfect cases I have seen, the entire head, neck, and breast are 

 dark smoky-brown, the color extending further along the breast than the jet plastron of 

 interpres, and not uniform, but the dark bro\wi nebulated with sooty centres of the feathers, 

 and shaded by mixture of white-tipped feathers into the white of the under parts. White lower 

 back, rump, and upper tail-coverts, with black central field of the latter, as in interpres; black 

 and white of wings substantially the same, but most of the primaries narrowly white-tipped. 

 Feet apparently of some obscure dark color. Other specimens have a distinct white loral spot, 



and indication of the white of head and neck of in- 

 terpres in white speckling. No trace of chestnut 

 seen in any. Size and form precisely as in interpres. 

 Apparently a permanent melanism ; if so, a very 

 curious case, and a good species. Pacific coast. 



40. Family RECURVIROSTRID^ : 



Avocets. Stilts. 

 Another small family, characterized by the ex- 

 treme length of the slender legs, and the extreme 

 slenderness of the long acute bill, which is either 

 nat. size. ' "" straiglit or curved upward. Ifecitm/'osira is 4-toed, 



39 



Fig. 424. —Head and foot of Avocet, about J 



