VOL. XV.] BREEDING-HABITS OF TURNSTONE. 179 



then with the bird on guard circled round us, all the time 

 making the attack note, or regarded us silently from some 

 point of vantage. If one got seventy or a hundred yards 

 away from the nest, and lay down, the incubating bird would 

 indulge in a number of circuitous runs in the neighbourhood 

 of the nest, and finally in quite a short time run straight to 

 them, and we often had the sitting bird under our glasses. 

 We then walked up and flushed the bird, the eggs being quite 

 ■easy to find. One pair near the shore were very wild, and the 

 moment we got on our feet from watching the bird on, she 

 got up off the eggs so quickly that we could not mark the 

 place. The reason for this was that Mr. Brown had watched 

 this pair on to some chipping eggs an hour or so previously 

 — a fact which we did not then know. Again on one of the 

 islands we watched a pair whose behaviour puzzled us, but 

 soon discovered that there were four young birds being looked 

 after by the cock. The moment he was flushed the young 

 birds scattered in all directions, and on our lying down again 

 came back under the fatherly wing. Before I discovered 

 that the cock incubated in the last stages I patiently watched 

 a hen running about quite unconcernedly for almost an hour, 

 and then suddenly jumped to the conclusion that the cock 

 was sitting. When I got up the hen gave the alarm note and 

 I flushed the cock from four chipping eggs. Before we had 

 learnt the ways of these birds we often lost much time in 

 finding the eggs by lying down to observe in a spot very 

 close to the nest, and then wondering why we could not watch 

 the bird on. This was put right, and by the time we left 

 this country we could guarantee to find any pair of Turnstones' 

 eggs inside an hour. The hen usually was the incubating 

 bird and the best plan was to keep one's eye on her. Of 

 course some pairs were wilder than others and it was only by 

 experience that one could find the approximate centre of 

 their gyrations. We should be interested to know if so many 

 Turnstones' nests have been found in so limited a space of 

 time. Of course the bare nature of the ground is bound to 

 make the finding of the nest easier than further south. 



After one week in Liefde Bay we went south again, and 

 various members of the expedition noted solitary pairs of 

 Turnstones in Ice Fjord, but nowhere did we meet again 

 such a colony as described. Very few records of the habits 

 of this bird have come from the high north, which certainly 

 seems the easiest place to study the species. At any rate, 

 we felt that we had got a basis for further observation, and 

 so returned home moderately satisfied. 



