522 CHARADRIID2E. 



when our attention was attracted by the singular cry of a 

 Turnstone, which, in its eager watch, had seen our approach, 

 and perched itself upon an eminence of the rock, assur- 

 ing us, by its querulous, oft-repeated note, and anxious 

 motions, that its nest was there. We remained in the boat 

 a short time, until we had watched it behind a tuft of 

 grass, near which, after a minute search, we succeeded in 

 finding the nest in a situation in which I should never 

 have expected to meet with a bird of this sort breeding ; 

 it was placed against a ledge of the rock, and consisted of 

 nothing more than the dropping leaves of the juniper bush, 

 under a creeping branch of which the eggs, four in num- 

 ber, were snugly concealed, and admirably sheltered from 

 the many storms by which these bleak and exposed rocks 

 are visited, allowing just sufficient room for the bird to 

 cover them. We afterwards found several more nests with 

 little difficulty. All the nests contained four eggs each. 

 The time of breeding is about the middle of June. The 

 eggs measure one inch seven lines in length, by one inch 

 two lines in breadth, of an olive green colour, spotted 

 and streaked with ash blue and two shades of reddish 

 brown." 



The Turnstone inhabits the shores and islands of the 

 Baltic, and was also one of the birds found by M. Yon 

 Baer at Nova Zembla. During the various northern 

 expeditions from this country, these birds were seen at 

 Greenland, on Winter Island, at Felix Harbour, and along 

 the coast between Victoria Harbour and Fury Point, about 

 the middle and towards the end of June. I have seen 

 specimens of old and young birds from Iceland ; and Sir 

 John Richardson says, " This species reaches its breeding- 

 quarters on the shores of Hudson's Bay, and of the Arctic 

 Sea, up to the seventy-fifth parallel, in June, and quits 

 them again in the beginning of September. It halts in 



