250 THE TURNSTONE 
one is ‘ Mussel picker’; and it is thought that ‘ Catcher’ comes 
from the Dutch aekster (magpie). The note isa shrill keep, keep. 
It swims well, and sometimes it will take to the water of its own 
accord. Although the nest is commonly on shingle or among 
sand-hills, or a tussock of sea-pink on a narrow ledge of rock, Mr. 
Howard Saunders has seen eggs of this bird in the emptied nest of 
a Herring-gull and on the summit of a lofty ‘ stack.’ 
THE TURNSTONE 
STREPSILAS INTERPRES 
Crown reddish white, with longitudinal black streaks ; upper part of the back, 
scapulars, and wing-coverts, rusty brown, spotted with black; rest of the 
plumage variegated with black and white; bill and irides black; feet 
orange-yellow. Length nine inches. Eggs greenish-grey, blotched 
and spotted with slate and brown. 
TueETurnstone is a regular annual visitor tothe shores of Great Britain, 
and indeed of almost every other country, having been observed 
as far north as Greenland, and as far south as the Straits of Magellan ; 
but it is rarely inland. It arrives on our coasts about the be- 
ginning of August, not in large flocks like the Plovers, but in small 
parties, each of which, it is conjectured, constitutes a family. It 
is a bird of elegant form and beautiful parti-coloured plumage, 
active in its habits, a nimble runner, and an indefatigable hunter 
after food. In size it is intermediate between the Grey Plover 
and Sanderling, being about as big as a Thrush. The former of 
these birds it resembles in its disposition to feed in company with 
birds of different species, and its impatience of the approach of 
man. For this latter reason it does not often happen that any 
one can get near enough to these birds to watch their manceuvres 
while engaged in the occupation from which they have derived 
their name, though their industry is often apparent from the num- 
ber of pebbles and shells found dislodged from their socket on the 
sands where a family has been feeding. Audubon, who had the 
good fortune to fall in with a party on a retired sea-coast, where, 
owing to the rare appearance of human beings, they were less fearful 
than is their wont, describes their operations with his usual felicity : 
‘“They were not more than fifteen or twenty yards distant, and I 
was delighted to see the ingenuity with which they turned over 
the oyster-shells, clods of mud, and other small bodies left exposed 
by the retiring tide. Whenever the object was not too large, the 
bird bent its legs to half their length, placed its bill beneath it, and 
