TURNSTONE. 33! 



Length eight inches and a half ; extent, seventeen inches ; 

 bill, blackish horn ; frontlet, space passing through the eyes, 

 and thence dropping down and joining the under mandible, 

 black, enclosing a spot of white ; crown, white, streaked with 

 black ; breast, black, from whence it turns up half across the 

 neck ; behind the eye, a spot of black ; upper part of the neck, 

 white, running down and skirting the black breast as far as 

 the shoulder ; upper part of the back, black, divided by a strip 

 of bright ferruginous ; scapulars, black, glossed with greenish, 

 and interspersed with rusty red ; whole back below this, pure 

 white, but hid by the scapulars ; rump, black ; tail-coverts, 

 white ; tail, rounded, white at the base half, thence black to 

 the extremity ; belly and vent, white ; wings, dark dusky, 

 crossed by two bands of white ; lower half of the lesser coverts, 

 ferruginous ; legs and feet, a bright vermilion, or red lead ; 

 hind toe, standing inwards, and all of them edged with a 

 thick warty membrane. The male and female are alike 

 variable, and when in perfect plumage nearly resemble each 

 other. 



Bewick, in his " History of British Birds," has figured and 

 described what he considers to be two species of turnstone ; 

 one of which, he says, is chiefly confined to the southern, and 

 the other to the northern parts of Great Britain. The diffe- 

 rence, however, between these two appears to be no greater 

 than commonly occurs among individuals of the same flock, 

 and evidently of the same species, in this country. As several 

 years probably elapse before these birds arrive at their com- 

 plete state of plumage, many varieties must necessarily appear, 

 according to the different ages of the individuals. 



