TURNSTONE 283 



ing their nests against the jaegers; these marauders are persistently 

 harried, desperately attacked, and finally driven away. 



Ralph Chislett (1925) gives an interesting account of finding the 

 turnstone breeding on a Baltic isle, where the nests were hidden 

 among the dense herbage. He says: 



Against the sky, not more than 30 yards away, appearing over the top of a 

 rise in the ground, as seen from the hiding tent, was a group of chervil flower 

 heads. One of the turnstones, on taking wing, flew directly to these flower 

 heads and appeared to settle in the midst of them. After giving the bird time 

 to get settled on the eggs (I hoped) I crawled out of the tent, and keeping 

 low was within 6 yards of the chervil clump when the turnstone took wing 

 from a point 2 yards on the other side, repeating its cry much more meaningly 

 than hitherto. I had been prepared to flnd the nest under shelter of some 

 sort, but had not expected the eggs to be so completely hidden from view as 

 proved to be the case here. The nest lay on the seaward side of the clump. 

 To obtain a view for the camera, a tall chervil stalk, some leaves, and grasses 

 had to be removed. The definite scrape was lined with bits of seaweed and 

 dry grass stems to a depth of more than 1 inch. 



Eggs. — Ml'. Brandt has sent me the following good description of 

 the turnstone's eggs collected by his party in Alaska : 



The ruddy turnstone lays four eggs and these may justly claim rank as some 

 of the handsomest of all the delightful Hooper Bay limicoline series. They are 

 subpyriform to ovate in shape and lie points together in the shallow nest. 

 The shell is glossy and smooth and is quite strong. The markings seldom 

 cover more than half the area of the eggs and in consequence the ground color 

 is prominent. The latter is quite variable, ranging from " yellowish glaucous " 

 to " olive buff " and even " deep olive buff." The surface markings are usually 

 bold and are most heavily concentrated on the larger end, but one striking 

 type is known for its beautiful marbled effect as the spots which are large and 

 clouded softly fade into the glossy ground color. These spots are irregular 

 in outline and are often slightly elongate, twisting into a pronounced clock- 

 wise spiral. The usual color of the primary spots is " warm sepia," but in the 

 greenish setting they are " olive brown " while in the marbled type " citrine 

 drab " is the prevailing shade. When the underlying markings are given 

 prominence their soft tones add to the beauty of the eggs. The colors of these 

 partially hidden ornaments range from " pale mouse gray " to " mouse gray." 

 The additional markings of brownish black to black are sparsely scattered 

 over the larger part of the egg usually in the form of small spots or pen-like 

 scratches. The vitality of the shore birds is attested by the fact that four turn- 

 stone's eggs laid in four days weigh 2i/^ ounces, while the parent bird herself 

 weighs but 3I/2 ounces. 



Most of the turnstone's eggs that I have seen are easily recognizable, 

 though the distinctive features are more easily seen than described. 

 The markings are usually quite evenly distributed and the egg well 

 covered with them. The 12 eggs so well illustrated on Frank 

 Poynting's (1895) beautiful plate, all taken from European eggs, 

 show some variations not mentioned by Mr. Brandt. The buffy 

 ground colors range from " dark olive buff " to " olive buff " ; and 



