{ 172 ) 



ON THE BREEDLNG-HABITS OF THE TURNSTONE 

 AS OBSERVED IN SPITSBERGEN.* 



BY 



A. H. PAGET WILKES, b.a., m.b.o.u. 

 The problem of the geographical races of birds is considered 

 to-day to be of great importance in the study of ornithology. 

 Curiously enough, so far as can be ascertained up to the 

 present, that most cosmopolitan of species, the Turnstone 

 (Arenaria interpres interpres) shows no tendency to separate 

 into geographical forms beyond the one found in arctic North 

 America, A. interpres mormella. The Turnstone is found on 

 almost all the shores of the world, at almost all seasons of the 

 year. Perhaps it is the powers of travel of this " farfugl," 

 that has proved the factor in keeping the bird to two forms 

 all the world over. On the other hand, the Turnstone 

 presents a more intricate and interesting problem in its 

 uneven breeding range. A glance at the map shows how 

 abnormal this range is compared with a bird of the same 

 family — the Grey Phalarope {Phalaropus fiilicarius). Colonel 

 Feilden found the Turnstone breeding in Grant Land, 

 Lat. 83° N. — the most northerly land on the globe {Ibis, 

 1905, p. 544) and yet it breeds commonly in the Baltic and 

 there is a doubtful record from north Portugal (Tait). Yet 

 still it does not breed in France or the British Isles and only 

 in the north of Iceland (Slater, Birds of Iceland, p. 86). 

 Hantzsch records it as a resident in Iceland {Vogelwelt 

 Islands, p. 268), von Zedlitz as a possible breeder in the 

 Spitsbergen Archipelago {J.f.O., 1911, p. 323) and Koettlitz 

 as a wanderer to Franz Josef Land (May 27th, 1896, Jackson- 

 Harmsworth Expedition). Some people would have us 

 believe that its main breeding grounds are further south, but 

 not only the work of the Oxford University Expedition but 

 also the experiences of men like von Middendorf in the 

 Taimyr and Boganida, Pearson on Waigatz and Popham on 

 the Yenisei {Ibis, 1898, p. 199) disprove that theory. It is 

 evidently common in Greenland from the reports of Manniche 

 and Winge as well as from the older authority, HolboU, who 

 states that it breeds in north and south Greenland. 



The following observations were made on the ornithological 

 expedition sent out by the University of Oxford to the 

 Spitsbergen Archipelago in the spring of 1921. The Turnstone 

 was observed to occur sporadically in Ice Fjord but these 

 observations come entirely from their breeding grounds in 

 Liefde Bay, north-west Spitsbergen. In all some twenty 

 pairs of birds were seen and no less than nineteen nests of 

 eggs or young in down discovered between the dates 



* Forming No. 3 of the "Results of the Oxford. University 

 Expedition to Spitsbergen." 



