PLOVERS AND SANDPIPERS. 89 



or pale buff in ground colour, blotched, spotted, and 

 clouded with olive-brown, dark reddish-brown, and 

 violet-gray. But one brood is reared in the year, 

 and the eggs are laid in June. As soon as the 

 young are able to fly the movement south begins. 

 The Turnstone breeds throughout the northern 

 parts of the Nearctic and Palaearctic regions, as 

 far as land is known to extend. Its nearest 

 breeding stations to the British Islands are in 

 Denmark, on some of the Baltic Islands, and in 

 Iceland. During winter it visits the coasts of 

 almost every part of the world, south of the Arctic 

 circle. 



PHALAROPES. ^/ 



But three species of the genus Phalaropus are 

 known, and two of these are British birds, one of 

 them the Red-necked Phalarope, P. hyperboreus, 

 breeding very sparingly and locally within our 

 limits, the other the Gray Phalarope, P. fulicarius, 

 a more or less regular visitor to our coasts in 

 autumn and winter. From many points of view 

 the Phalaropes are very interesting birds. They 

 are distinguished from all other Limicoline forms 

 by the structure of the feet, which are lobed like 

 those of the Coot a peculiarity which induced 

 Edwards, in 1741, to describe a Phalarope as the 

 " Coot-footed Tringa." They are by far the most 

 aquatic of the Charadriidse, swimming as readily 

 as Gulls or Ducks, and often going for hundreds of 

 miles out on to the open sea ; indeed they spend 



