250 THE TURNSTONE 



one is ' Mussel picker ' ; and it is thought that ' Catcher ' comes 

 from the Dutch aekster (magpie). The note is a shrill keep, keep. 

 It swims well, and sometimes it wiU take to the water of its own 

 accord. Although the nest is commonly on shingle or among 

 sand-hills, or a tussock of sea-pink on a narrow ledge of rock, Mr. 

 Howard Saunders has seen eggs of this bird in the emptied nest of 

 a Herring-gull and on the summit of a lofty ' stack.' 



THE TURNSTONE 



STR^PSILAS INXfeRPRES 



Crown reddish white, with longitudinal black streaks ; upper part of the back, 

 scapulars, and wing-coverts, rusty brown, spotted with black ; rest of the 

 plumage variegated with black and white ; bill and hides black ; feet 

 orange-yellow. Length nine inches. Eggs greenish-grey, blotched 

 and spotted with slate and brown. 



THETurnstone is a regular annual visitor tothe shores of Great Britain, 

 and indeed of almost every other country, having been observed 

 as far north as Greenland, and as far south as the Straits of Magellan ; 

 but it is rarely inland. It arrives on our coasts about the be- 

 ginning of August, not in large flocks like the Plovers, but in small 

 parties, each of which, it is conjectured, constitutes a family. It 

 is a bird of elegant form and beautiful parti-coloured plumage, 

 active in its habits, a nimble runner, and an indefatigable hunter 

 after food. In size it is intermediate between the Grey Plover 

 and Sanderling, being about as big as a Thrush. The former of 

 these birds it resembles in its disposition to feed in company with 

 birds of different species, and its impatience of the approach of 

 man. For this latter reason it does not often happen that any 

 one can get near enough to these birds to watch their manoeuvres 

 while engaged in the occupation from which they have derived 

 their name, though their industry is often apparent from the num- 

 ber of pebbles and shells found dislodged from their socket on the 

 sands where a family has been feeding. Audubon, who had the 

 good fortune to fall in with a party on a retired sea-coast, where, 

 owing to the rare appearance of human beings, they were less fearful 

 than is their wont, describes their operations with his usual felicity : 

 " They were not more than fifteen or twenty yards distant, and I 

 was delighted to see the ingenuity with which they turned over 

 the oyster-shells, clods of mud, and other small bodies left exposed 

 by the retiring tide. Whenever the object was not too large, the 

 bird bent its legs to half their length, placed its bill beneath it, and 



