6904 THE BLACK OYSTER-CATCHER. 
SAVE during the nesting season, the Black Turnstone is as characteristic 
of the barnacle-covered reefs off our Pacific shore as is the Black Oyster- 
catcher in June. The birds move in little companies, cheered by rattling, piping 
cries; and they seem to prefer the lowest possible reaches of the rock above the 
actual wash-line of the waves, where they may be wetted by incessant spray. 
When hushed into silence and immobility by the approach of a stranger, the 
birds appear themselves like little else than bunches of sea-weed or knobs of 
the somber reef; but when reassured as to the stranger’s intent, they begin to 
stir about and chatter. Now and then one of them runs at his fellows with 
outstretched bill and neck, and a fine scuffle of flight ensues. When they take 
to wing, as they do by a common flock impulse, the transformation in appear- 
ance is a delight to the eye. Instead of a row of dull-colored clods, there ap- 
pears a constant cyclorama of flashing whites, set off by variegating blacks. 
In summer this species enjoys a rather more southerly distribution than 
morinella, being found as far south as Sitka. According to Nelson: “It breeds 
among the brackish pools on Saint Michaels Island, and is found scattered over 
the wet flats everywhere. It is one of the commonest birds of this locality, its 
sharp clear note breaking the silence wherever one turns his steps among the 
pools and marshy places. It has a habit of circling round the intruder, during 
the nesting season, with a fine clear peeping cry like the syllables weet, weet, 
too-weel, as it moves restlessly about ; now stopping a moment on a slight knoll, 
then running hastily along the edge of a neighboring pool, perhaps picking up 
a scrap of food as it runs, and then it mounts on wing again and comes 
careering about, evincing the liveliest distress at the invasion of its haunts.” 
The Black Turnstone is at no time so great a wanderer as its ruddy 
cousin. It does not frequent the interior, nor does it go further south than 
Lower California. Its range on Puget Sound is chiefly limited to the islands 
and rocky points north of Port Townsend, altho Suckley mentions its occur- 
rence “in immense numbers,” ‘on a small rock island nearly opposite Seattle,” 
probably Blakely Rock. He also found that they wintered sparingly along the 
Straits of Juan de Fuca, where he shot them in January, February and March. 
No. 283. 
BLACK OYSTER-CATCHER. 
A. O, U. No. 287. Hamatopus bachmani Aud. 
Synonym.—PLuMPER. 
Description.—du/t: Head and neck slaty black; remaining plumage sooty 
black, lightest (dark sooty brown) on back; bill and eyelids vermilion ; irides yel- 
low; feet and legs pale old-rose or flesh-color; nails black. /mmature: Sooty 
