6g2 THE RUDDY TURNSTONE. 
Authorities.—Strepsilas interpres (Linn.) Il., Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., 
Vol. IX., 1858, p. 702. C&S. Rh. 
Specimens. —|'roy. 
WE reserve the right to feel aggrieved that this beautiful creature will 
not stay and make his home with us. We have done our best to “advertise 
the country.” We have even tried to induce our fellow-men with the guns 
to discriminate between the real game, i. e., birds with bodies big enough to 
be really worth eating, and animated bunches of feathers, like these, worth 
infinitely more as food for the eye. But the Turnstone tarries not in our in- 
hospitable clime. And it is well, perhaps, for he is ever a sociable creature; 
and where two or three shore birds are gathered together, there shall the 
gunner be to plot and destroy. 
And we are thankful that the Turnstone’s beauty graces our shores if but 
for a season. Indeed, this handsome wader is a bird of catholic taste, and may 
appear during migrations under widely varying conditions. Sand beaches 
have first choice, and to see the pied pipers pattering after the retreating wave, 
or else submitting to its playful buffeting, is indeed a pretty sight. Here 
also the birds scratch after the manner of chickens, earning thereby the name 
Chicken Plover. Or if they tire of the sand, they patter among the pebbles, up- 
setting industriously those which are likely to harbor hidden sweets of bug 
or worm. 
Rough, tide-washed rocks come in for second choice; and altho the birds 
cannot do any stone-turning here, they take ample toll of the clinging crea- 
tures, limpets and their ilk, which require a poke and a pry to convince them. 
They mingle here with their cousins, the Black Turnstones, and altho T have 
seen a large company of the latter receive a brighter pair with some show of 
haughtiness, | think they soon establish their welcome. 
But a river bar or an alkaline plash, in the interior of the State, is as 
likely to win an hour from this bird in passing; and I have seen stray indi- 
viduals, installed as guides, riding the pile booms of Drayton Harbor in 
company with half a thousand little “Westerns.” 
Once, in Ohio, I was surprised and delighted, in view of the late date, 
June 4th, 1903, to see a flock of sixteen of these waders feeding industriously 
on a large patch of reclaimed swamp land near Port Clinton. By cautious ap- 
proach under cover of a dyke I was able to see that both sexes were about 
equally represented in the flock; and noted, again, the patchy pattern of white, 
black, and intense rufous, as it was thrown into relief by the black, mucky 
soil. The birds were silent and intent only upon feeding. This they did by ad- 
vancing slowly over the plowed ground and gleaning from its surface, and by 
turning over the clods which lay in their path to search eagerly beneath. It 
was rather amusing to see a bird walk up to a clod bigger than itself and 
