364 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



wheeling at a great height above a ploughed field, sweeping 

 hither and thither in long lines, fresh divisions, large and small, 

 constantly arriving and soaring round. Sometimes two divi- 

 sions would unite, but they generally kept apart, though once I 

 saw two great flocks meet one another. It seemed certain that 

 they must either collide or fuse together, but they did neither. 

 What actually happened was, that the larger division suddenly 

 expanded, and the second company passed straight through 

 the extended ranks of the first, which then closed up again ; 

 there was not the slightest confusion, not a single bird lost its 

 place, and the two bodies remained perfectly distinct ; when at 

 length they had completed the morning's drill, a large flock 

 alighted on the field above which they had been exercising, 

 followed at short intervals by other large flocks, by parties of a 

 dozen, by twos and threes, the birds descending to the earth in 

 gentle curving flight, raising their wings over their backs as 

 they alighted, and so displaying their white flanks for an instant 

 before they became black and almost inanimate objects on the 

 frozen field. 



TURNSTONE. 



Strepsilas interpret (L.). 



Dr. Hey sham did not include the Turnstone in his catalogue 

 of Cumberland animals in 1796, but T. C. Heysham quoted, in 

 1830, a note from his father's papers to the effect that 'the first 

 was killed on the borders of Ulleswater on the 11th of May 

 1801.' The elder naturalist must, therefore, have come across 

 the species within four or five years of the appearance of his 

 catalogue. Turnstones rarely occur in the interior of Lakeland, 

 but immature birds are fairly common on our coast from Arnside 

 to Seatcale, north of which, and on the English side of the 

 Solway, they are met with only sparingly, though I have often 

 observed individual birds, and recognised their mellow whistle 

 on the mussel scars alike in spring, autumn, and winter. They 

 very seldom visit the salt marshes of the upper Solway, though 

 an odd one sometimes frequents the brow edge of Skinburness 

 marsh at high tide, feeding on the mussel scar opposite at low 



