TURNSTONE 287 



sanderlings were standing close by and picking up some small objects 

 thrown out, until driven away by savage attacks of the turnstone. 

 On close examination I found a numljer of small, black snails and 

 other minute mollusks in the sand thrown out. The stomach of one 

 shot contained only the minute mollusks and some coarse sand. 



Doctor Stejneger (1885) found turnstones feeding in large numbers 

 on the killing grounds in the Commander Islands, " where thousands 

 of putrified carcasses of the slain fur seals swarm with myriads of 

 the white larvae of the flesh fly," on which they grow very fat. 

 Francis H. Allen tells me he has seen them feeding on rocks which 

 are bare only at low tide and covered with barnacles. One that he 

 watched — 



sometimes simply picked its food up from among the barnacles and rocliweeil, 

 and sometimes it hammered away in one spot like a woodpecker before getting 

 its morsel. The object hammered was evidently fixed. After the bird had 

 flown, I visited the spot and found many empty barnacle shells — empty of bar- 

 nacles, that is — some entirely empty and others containing small .snail-like 

 mollusks with dark-colored shells. 



On the coast of South Carolina I have seen turnstones feeding on 

 the beds of coon oysters and have watched them busily engaged in 

 chasing the small fiddler crabs on the muddy banks of tidal creeks 

 and on the mud lumps; they had to run very fast to catch the spry 

 little animals and probably had to pick out the smallest ones. Mr. 

 Wayne (1910) says: "On Capers Island it frequents live oak trees 

 which are covered with small mussels, upon which it eagerly feeds. 

 If some of the mussels happen to be on an inclined limb the birds 

 walk, instead of flying, to reach them. I have seen as many as four 

 of these, one behind the other, on a small limb out in the surf." 



Mr. Manniche (1910) says that just after their arrival in Green- 

 land the turnstones feed mainly on vegetable food ; the stomach of a 

 bird taken on May 22 contained only remains of plants. Dr. Paul 

 Bartsch (1922), referring to his visit to Midway Island, writes: "It 

 was a decided surprise to us to find waders in bushes feeding upon 

 berries, and yet this was the case here. Again and again we flushed 

 bunches of turnstones from the dense Scaevola thickets and watched 

 them circle about for some time, only to realight in the tops of an- 

 other clump of bushes. Specimens shot on Sand Island were filled 

 with Scaevola berries." 



C. J. Maj^nard (1896) says that they sometimes resort to marshes 

 and feed on grasshoppers. Their main food supply evidently con- 

 sists of small crustaceans, small mollusks, insects, and their larvae, 

 all of which they consume in large quantities and in great variety. 

 In Massachusetts it is sometimes called the " horse-foot snipe," be- 

 cause of its fondness for the eggs of the horse-foot crab. John T. 

 Nichols tells me that it scratches up the eggs by " jumping in the 



