General 
descrip- 
tion. 
Summer 
plumage. 
Winter 
plumage. 
202 GRALLATORES. STREPSILAS. 
Pirate 93. Fig .1. Represents it in the summer plumage. 
Head, neck, upper part of the breast, mantle, scapulars, 
lesser wing-coverts, and the front half of the tail, glossy 
velvet black. Under parts, lower part of the back, 
rump, basal part of the tail, and the transverse wing 
bars pure white. Quills black, with an oblong white 
spot occupying the centre of each feather near the tip, 
and the basal part of the inner web white. Bill, and 
circle round the eyes, orange-red. Irides crimson. 
Legs deep purplish-red. 
Fig. 2, In the winter plumage. Distinguished by a collar 
of white beneath the throat ; the dark parts of the plu- 
mage not so intense, but more inclining to brownish- 
black, and the bill and legs of paler hue. 
The young of the year have still more brown in the dark 
parts, and the white is not of such unsullied: purity as 
in the adults. The feet are livid or greyish-white, 
tinged with pink. Theirides brown. The bill yellow- 
ish-brown, tinged with orange. 
Genus STREPSILAS, Jzzricgzr. —TURNSTONE. 
GENERIC CHARACTERS. 
J 
Bitz as short as the head, strong, compressed, forming an 
elongated cone: thick at the base, and narrowing gradually 
to the point, which is horny and hard. Upper mandible 
rather longer than the lower one; the culmen flattened at 
the base, and rounded from thence to its extremity, which is 
subtruncated. Under mandible ascending. 
Nostrils basal, lateral, linear, oblong, pervious, partly co- 
vered above by a membrane. 
Wings long, acuminate, with the first quill-feather the 
longest. 
