NOTES AND QUERIES. 435 
1890, April 9th (Exmouth) ......... 
1891, May 14th (Exeter) ............ April 24th (Kingsbridge). 
1892, May 5th (Exmouth) ......... 
MM cc ceacelcceseessccuees 
1894, April 20th (Exmouth) ...... 
1895, May Ist (Bovey); May 9th 
(Slapton, in large numbers) ; 
May 12th (Exmouth) ......... 
1896, May 8th (Exmouth) ......... 
1897, May 3rd (Chagford) ......... 
1898, June 19th (Topsham)......... 
—W.S. M. D’UrRsan (Newport House, near Exeter). 
Dr. Saxby and the Breeding of the Turnstone.—The locus standi of 
the Turnstone (Strepsilas interpres}, in relation to the question as to whether 
the species has ever been known to breed in the British Islands, has long 
perplexed me. No authenticated nests and eggs have ever been found, 
write, in effect, most of the more modern authorities in the ornitholugical 
world. And yet Saxby’s account of the discovery of a nest and eggs in 
Shetland is so circumstantial as to make one wonder whether there is any- 
thing ‘‘ behind the scenes ” which causes such almost universal scepticism 
on the point. That indefatigable and intelligent ornithologist observed a 
female Turnstone on the evening of June 16th “behaving very sus- 
piciously”; he ultimately, after a search extending over two hours, 
stumbled on the eggs, three in number, which were lying “in a hollow 
among the stones,” the same hollow being “ scantily lined with dry grass.” 
That the eggs were fresh is to be inferred from the context at the top of 
p. 172 in ‘ The Birds of Shetland,’ a copy of which work I have before me. 
Further, Saxby writes that he ‘“ had not the smallest doubt that the eggs 
were Turnstone’s—indeed, they could have been nothing else.” On the 
following morning a man arrived with the two eggs which Saxby had left in 
the nest overnight to claim the reward offered by the latter—an incident 
which tends to prove that the Shetlander had no misgivings as to the 
correct identity of the species. While yet again, after having specifically 
referred to the fact that he had for years seen Turnstones im pairs about 
the shores of Unst during the breeding season, Saxby writes :—‘‘ Two of the 
eggs were a good deal like the figure in Mr. Hewitson’s work.” Now it 
seems to me that for writers with almost one accord to declare that it is 
highly probable that the Turnstone breeds in Shetland and on some of the 
northern islands, and then summarily to reject Saxby’s positive and very 
explicit account of the discovery of a nest and eggs in Shetland with the 
remark, ‘‘ There is no authentic instance of the breeding of the Turnstone 
in Great Britain” (vol. iii. p. 178, ‘ British Birds,’ Bowdler Sharpe), is a 
capricious, not to say arbitrary and illogical way of treating the matter. I 
have nowhere seen it stated that Saxby was not competent to identify a 
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