THE TURNSTONE 409 



and together with them leaves the country about the middle of 

 July. 1 



The female adopts to a certain extent the "injury feigning" 

 device for the protection of her young. Herr Manniche says, " The 

 young ones would often resort to the upper part of rather high rocks, 

 while the old female, incessantly crying, and anxiously flapping, tried 

 to divert my attention from them." Until the young birds can fly, 

 the females remain with them, but in the beginning of August the 

 young ones flock and go to the coast and the mouths of rivers, where 

 they mix with the flocks of other young Waders. The old females 

 now leave the country, and are followed at the end of August by the 

 young birds. 2 



If this order of migration from Greenland recorded by Herr 

 Manniche is correct and so good an observer would be pretty sure 

 of his facts it should help us to understand the order of the arrival 

 on our shores in late summer and autumn of this, and possibly other 

 species of Waders. The date on which the young are independent of 

 the care of their parents would not vary much in the different 

 localities in which they breed. The middle of June would in most 

 Arctic localities be the most favourable time for the commencement 

 of egg-laying. Even in their most southern nesting-places they would 

 not start much earlier. The eggs found by Herr Manniche during 

 the last days of June were much incubated. The habits of the 

 birds would no doubt be the same in all breeding-stations. It 

 may therefore be presumed that it is the rule for the males to 

 leave the breeding-grounds about the middle of July. This may 

 well account for the fact that a few old birds in breeding plumage 

 generally precede the autumn arrival of young birds. Some of the 

 birds that migrate by way of our coasts must come from localities 

 where emigration takes place earlier than in Greenland, for it is not 

 by any means unusual to meet with small parties of immature 

 turnstones in the first week of August, In 1910 they were observed 



1 A. L. V. Manniche, op. tit, pp. 128-9. * Jbid., p. 129. 



