STREPSILAS, 233 



Length. — 16 inches^ y^'mg 9, tail 4*5, bill at front 1-5, irides and orbits 

 yellow, also the legs and feet. 



Hah. — Throughout India, also Persia. Affects stony places and the 

 sides of sloping banks; runs very swiftly, especially when first surprised, 

 stops short now and again after the manner of Cursorius isahelUmis, and 

 squats close to the ground, depending for safety on the colour of its 

 plumage, which is like that of the ground. Its flight is strong and 

 steady, but it seldom uses its wings, except when hard pressed ; usually 

 turns out in the evening in quest of food, which consists chiefly of 

 worms. The young are said to run from the nest within three hours 

 of their birth. It is not uncommon to meet with parties of this bird 

 in looking for Oobara {H. Macqueenii) among Grewia bushes, and 

 perhaps from this circumstance and its lineated plumage it is called 

 the "chota or small Taloor.^' Breeds in the Province from April to 

 June. It makes no nest, the eggs being laid in a small depi^ession in 

 the ground, usually sheltered by a stone. 



Family, H^EMATOPODID^, 52^.— Sea Plovers. 



Feet with three toes, and a very small hind toe ; bill long, strong, 

 front half compressed, tip blunt ; wings long and pointed. 



Sub-Family, STREPSlLINvE.— ^i?. 



Characters those of the Family ; bill slightly curved upwards. 



Strepsilas interpres, Linn.; P. E. 856; Naum. voqt. t. 180; 

 Gould. B. Eur. pi. 318 ; Jevd. B. Tnd. iii. p. 656, No. 860 ; Str. F. i. 233 ; 

 ivt 464; Murray, Hdhk., ZooL, ^c, Sind, p. 212. — The Turnstone. 



In winter the Turnstone is clad in very sober plumage ; the crown 

 and hinder part of the head are dusky, edged very narrowly with 

 greyish brown ; the lores pale brown, or in some specimens greyish 

 brown ; the chin and throat are white, also a patch on each side of the 

 neck, bordered in front along the sides of the white throat patch with 

 dusky or dai-k brown; upper back, scapulars, rump, breast and sides 

 of the breast dusky or dark brown, according to season, edged with 

 rusty or brownish red ; some of the scapulars partly edged with white ; 

 tertials long, reaching be_yond the fifth quill, edged and tipped with 

 rufous or red brown ; lesser wing-coverts, like the upper back, white 

 at the shoulder ; the secondary or greater coverts tipped with white, 

 forming a conspicuous wing bar ; primaries and secondai'ies black, the 

 inner webs of the former and tips of the latter white ; back, lower 

 surface of the body from below the breast, also the thigh and upper 

 and lower tail-coverts white ; a patch of black on the rump ; tail fea- 

 thers white, with a subterrainal black band, except the central ones, 

 which are entirely black. In the summer or breeding plumage, the 

 forehead, a band over the eye, lores and a patch behind the eye are 

 white; the crown of the- head is also white, broadly streaked with black. 

 There is also a black streak behind the white frontal patch, continued 

 to the front and below the eye on each side joining the black streak 



30 z 



