176 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



Family CHABADBIID^E. Genus STREPSILAS. 



Subfamily STREPSILIN&. 



TURNSTONE. 



STEEPSILAS INTEEPEES (Linnaus) . 



Tringa interpres, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 248 (1766). 



Strepsilas interpres (Linn.), Maegill. Brit. B. iv. p. 143 (1852) ; Dresser, B. Eur. vii. 

 p. 555, pi. 532 (1875) ; Yarrell, Brit. B. ed. 4 iii. p. 289 (1883) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. 

 Brit. B. pt. xiv. (1890); Dixon, Nests and Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 259 

 (1894). 



Charadrius interpres (Linn.), Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 12 (1885) ; Seebohm, 

 Col. Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 119, pi. 38 (1896). 



Arenaria interpres (Linn.), Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iii. p. 176 (1896); Sharpe, 

 Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 92 (1896). 



Geographical distribution British: The Turnstone is most abun- 

 dant on the British coasts during spring and autumn passage, a few only remaining 

 to winter. It is commonest on the Scotch and Irish coasts, and probably breeds 

 on the Hebrides and the Orkney and Shetland groups. Foreign : Circumpolar 

 region, and widely dispersed, breeding as far north as land extends, but in 

 the Northern hemisphere, apparently in Europe,not south of the Baltic, although 

 there is some evidence to suggest that it may do so in the Canaries and the 

 Azores ; and Heuglin seems to have discovered it breeding on the shores of the 

 Bed Sea. In winter it is practically cosmopolitan south of the Arctic circle, and a 

 visitor to the coasts of both hemispheres down to the Intertropical realm. The 

 Turnstone is another species with an equatorial base, migrating north and south 

 to breed, although its nesting places are fewer and much less known in the 

 Southern than in the Northern hemisphere. It has been met with inland, 

 amongst other places on the highlands of Yarkand in Central Asia, and on the 

 shores of Lake Nyassa in Central Africa. 



Allied forms. Strepsilas melanocephalus, an inhabitant of the coasts 

 of Western America from Alaska to Mexico. Differs from the Common Turnstone 

 in having the chestnut replaced by black, and in the absence of white on the 

 head and neck. 



