TURNSTONE. 17 



breed, wandering southerly in autumn. It is said to 

 build on the ground, and to lay four eggs, of an olive 

 colour, spotted with black, and to inhabit the isles of 

 the Baltic during summer. 



The tumstoue flies with a loud twittering note, and 

 runs with its wings lowered ; but not with the rapidity 

 of others of its tribe. It examines more completely the 

 same spot of ground, and, like some of the woodpeckers, 

 will remain searching in the same place, tossing the 

 stones and pebbles from side to side for a considerable 

 time. 



These birds vary greatly in colour; scarcely two 

 individuals are to be found alike in markings. These 

 varieties are most numerous in autumn when the young 

 birds are about, and are less frequently met with in 

 spring. The most perfect specimens I have examined 

 are as follows : 



Length eight inches and a half, extent seventeen 

 inches; bill, blackish horn; frontlet, space passing 

 through the eyes, and thence dropping down and 

 joining the under mandible, black, enclosing a spot of 

 white. Crown, Avhite, streaked with black ; breast, 

 black, from whence it turns up half across the neck; 

 behind the eye, a spot of black; upper part of the 

 neck, white, running down and skirting the black breast 

 as far as the shoulder ; upper part of the back, black, 

 divided by a strip of bright ferruginous; scapulars, 

 black, glossed with greenish, and interspersed with 

 rusty red ; whole back below this, pure white, but hid 

 by the scapulars; rump, black; tail-coverts, white; 

 tail, rounded, white at the base half, thence black to 

 the extremity; belly and vent, white; wings, dark 

 dusky, crossed by two bands of white ; lower half of 

 the lesser coverts, ferruginous ; legs and feet, a bright 

 vermilion, or red lead ; hind toe, standing inwards, and 

 all of them ed<red with a thick warty membrane. The 

 male and female are alike variable ; and when in perfect 

 plumage nearly resemble each other. 



Bewick, in his History of British Birds, has figured 

 and described what he considers to be two species of 



VOL. III. B 



