292 BULLETIN 14 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



They have repeatedly been seen in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 

 hundreds of miles from land. This does not seem so remarkable, 

 now that we know that they can alight and rest on the water and 

 rise from it easily. They must go a long time without food or find 

 a very scanty supply of it, as it must take 40 or 50 hours to make 

 the trip. But Dr. Henry W. Henshaw (1902) says that some of the 

 first arrivals on these islands, which he shot about the middle of 

 August, " were all of them plump and in fine order for the table." 



Game. — The turnstone has never attained great importance as a 

 game bird, though it was formerly counted in the list of "big birds " 

 in the gunner's bag. It was plump and generally fat, so that it made 

 a good table bird. It has a variety of local names, such as chicken 

 plover, calico bird, brant bird, etc. It decoys well to almost any 

 decoys and, although its own note is difficult to imitate, it will 

 respond readily to the call of its favorite companion, the black- 

 bellied plover. 



Winter. — The ruddy turnstone spends the winter on the coasts of 

 the southern States and on both coasts of South America, from South 

 Carolina to Brazil and from southern California to Chile. The 

 larger, Old World form, interpres., apparently does not winter any- 

 where in the Western Hemisphere, but occupies the coasts of southern 

 Europe and Asia, much of Africa, some of the oceanic islands, and 

 Australia. If we are to recognize the Pacific form, oahuensis, there 

 is yet much to be learned about the limits of its winter and summer 

 ranges and where it intergrades with inferpres. The island of Oahu 

 in the Hawaiian Islands is the type locality of oahuensis; and it 

 probably has a wide range among Pacific islands. 



Dr. Alexander Wetmore says in his notes : 



In the remote islands of the Hawaiian bird reservation the turnstone is 

 common during the period of northern winter, and a few sterile or injured 

 individuals may remain through the summer. Though common along the 

 sandy beaches and the shores of lagoons, as is usual, at times they exhibited 

 curious habits, as on Ocean Island they ran back from the open shore beneath 

 the thickets of beach magnolia (Scaevola), penetrating the entire island in 

 cover as dense as that ordinarily chosen by woodcock. It was always a surprise 

 when one, attracted by some sound, flew up from under the bushes and perched 

 on a dead branch to look at me. On Midway turnstones ran about on the 

 lawns at the cable station like robins, with so domestic and contented an air 

 that it was at times difiicult to recall that they were here merely as transients, 

 and that soon they would be nesting in arctic tundras. 



Charles Barrett writes to me from Australia, as follows : 



One of our most interesting summer visitors, the turnstone frequents open 

 beaches on the mainland generally in small flocks, and also favors reefs and 

 coral strands among the tropical and subtropical islands. When camped, with 

 other members of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union, on Masthead 

 Island, Capricorn Group, Queensland, in October, 1910, I observed many turn- 



