200 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



131 [283.1] Arenaria morinella (Linn.). 

 Ruddy Turnstone; "Chicken Plover"; "Chicken"; "Calico-bird." 



Common transient visitor; May 10 to May 31 ; July 25 to October 16. 



Essentially a bird of the shore, the Turnstone is found with other waders, 

 singly or in small flocks on the sandy or stony beaches, as well as on the rocky 

 shores, and it occasionally visits the sloughs of the marshes. Turnstones readily 

 come in to decoys, and, if the gun is left behind, can sometimes be closely 

 approached on the open beaches. In habits of walking they are between the 

 Plover and the Sandpipers, not holding the head as erect as the Plover, and not 

 so continually with bill to the ground as the Sandpipers. They differ from both, 

 however, in the habit, from which they get their name, of turning over with 

 their bills, stones, sticks, and seaweed in their search for food. They sometimes 

 push against a mass of seaweed nearly as large as themselves, and roll it over, 

 rooting like pigs. So vigorous are they in this, that bits of seaweed are often 

 tossed into the air. Like little pigs, also, they grow very fat. I have found 

 them once in September " rooting" in the great masses of Irish moss thrown up 

 on Milk Island, off the end of Cape Ann. This seaweed was swarming with 

 amphipod crustaceans on which the Turnstones were feeding. I shot two of the 

 birds but found them great balls of fat, which made them excellent for the 

 table, but valueless as specimens. 



Like other shore birds, Turnstones delight in bathing at the edge of the 

 waves, shaking themselves vigorously after the bath, and spreading their wings 

 up over their backs. They sleep with the bill in the feathers of the back, occa- 

 sionally squatting on the sand. Even when not feeding they are in the habit of 

 standing in and near the seaweed thrown up on the beach. The brown of their 

 backs matches so closely the color of the kelp that it is often difficult to distin- 

 guish them. Turnstones have a variety of call notes : a clear whistle of two or 

 three notes, deep and melodious ; also a hoarse rasping note or rattle, and a loud, 

 rapidly repeated, short kuk kuk kuk. I have heard them utter the latter in 

 answer to other shore birds who were calling as they flew by, and I have heard 

 it at night on the beach, answered by the calls of the Ring-neck. 



The adults are a beautiful sight with their rich chestnut and black backs, 

 their white heads, spotted and marked with black, their black upper breasts, con- 

 trasting with the white lower breast and belly, and their short, coral-red legs. 

 No white is visible on their backs as they stand or run on the beach. In flight, 

 however, they display three characteristic longitudinal streaks on their backs 



