H^MA TOPODIDJE — STREP SILAIN^ : TURNSTONES. 
609 
Analysis of Species. 
Pied with black, white, and chestnut ; feet orange interpres 598 
Blackish and white ; feet dark ? melanocephalus 599 
S. inter'pres. (Lat. interpres, a factor, agent, go-between. Fig. 423.) Turnstone. Brant 
Bird. Calico-back. Adult in breeding dress: Pied above with black, white, brown, 
and chestnut-red ; below, snowy, with jet breast. Top of head streaked with black and white. 
Forehead, cheeks, sides of head and back of neck, white, with a bar of black coining up from 
the side of neck to below eye, then coming forward and meeting or tending to meet its fellow 
over base of bill, enclosing or nearly enclosing a white k)ral, and another black pnjlongation 
on side of neck ; lower eye-lid white or not. Lower hind neck, interscapulars and scapulars, 
pied with black and chestnut ; back, rump, and upper tail-coverts, snowy- white, with a large 
central blackish field on the latter. Tail white, with broad subterminal blackish field, 
narrowing on outer feathers and incomplete, widening to usually cut off white tips of central 
feathers. Wing-coverts and long inner secondaries pied like the scapulars with black and 
chestnut, the greater coverts broadly white-tipped or mostly white, the short inner secondaries 
entirely white, the rest acquiring dusky on their ends to increasing extent, with result of a 
broad oblique white wing-bar. Primaries blackish, the longer ones with large white fields on 
inner webs, the shorter ones also definitely white on outer webs for a space, the shafts white 
unless at end; primary coverts white-tipped. Under parts, including under wing-coverts, 
snowy-white, the breast and jugulum jet-black, enclosing a white throat-patch, and sending 
limbs on sides of head and ueck as above said. Bill black ; iris black ; feet orange. 9 similar, 
lacking much of the chestnut, replaced by plain brown, especially on the wing-coverts ; the 
dark parts in same pattern, but restricted somewhat, the black not jet and glossy. Adults in 
winter, and young, lacking the chestnut entirely, the black mostly replaced by browns and 
grays, that of the breast especially restricted or veiy imperfect. Length 8.00-9.00 ; extent 
16.00-19.00 ) wing 5.50-6.00 ; tail 2.50 ; bill 0.80-0.90 ; tarsus, or middle toe and claw, about 
1.00. Nearly cosmopolitan ; in N. Am., both coasts abundantly, and infrequently on the larger 
inland waters ) migrating through and wintering in the U. S., breeding in high latitudes. 
S. melanoce'phalus. (Gr. /ne'Xas, melas, black; Kec})aXT], kephale, head.) Black-headed 
Turnstone. Without any of the chestnut coloration of the last, the parts that are pied in 
interpres being blackish ; the white parts, however, and the distribution of the colored areas, 
nearly the same. In the most perfect cases I have seen, the entire head, neck, and breast are 
dark smoky-brown, the color extending further along the breast than the jet plastron of 
interpres, and not uniform, but the dark brown nebulated with sooty centres of the feathers, 
and shaded by mixture of white-tipped feathers into the white of the under parts. White lower 
back, rump, and upper tail-coverts, with black central field of the latter, as in interpres; black 
and white of wings substantially the same, but most of the primaries narrowly white-tipped. 
Feet apparently of some obscure dark color. Other specimens have a distinct white loral spot, 
and indication of the white of head and neck of in- 
terpres in white speckling. No trace of chestnut 
seen in any. Size and form precisely as in interpres. 
Apparently a permanent melanism ; if so, a very 
curious case, and a good species. Pacific coast. 
40. Family RECURVIROSTRID^ : 
Avocets. Stilts. 
Another small family, characterized by the ex- 
treme length of the slender legs, and the extreme 
slenderness of the long acute bill, which is either 
nat. size " Straight or curved upward. Recurvirostra is 4-toed, 
39 
Fig. 424. — Head and foot of Avocet, about 
