120 
PRA3COC1AL GRALLATORES — LIM1COLJE. 
Remainder of the lower parts, upper part of the rump, upper tail-coverts, and ends of secondaries, 
pure white. Breeding-plumage: Upper parts dusky blackish, the wing-coverts lighter, more 
brownish gray, the feathers showing darker centres ; back and scapulars little, if at all, varied with 
rufous; crown dusky, uniform, or streaked. Spring ( and winter ?) plumage : Upper parts mixed 
black and bright rufous, the latter color occupying chiefly the middle of the back (longitudinally) 
and the wing-coverts, the scapulars and tertials mixed black and rufous. Pileuin more streaked 
with white, and markings about the head and neck more sharply defined than in the summer dress. 
“Bill black; iris hazel; feet deep orange-red, claws black” (Audubon). Young: Head chiefly 
mottled grayish, without well-defined markings ; black of the jugulum and breast indicated by 
mottled dusky, occupying the same area, but not sharply defined ; upper parts grayish dusky, the 
feathers bordered terminally with buff or whitish. 
Total length about 9 inches; wing, 6.00; tail, 2.50; culmen, .80-.90; tarsus, 1.00; middle 
toe, .75. 
Spring plumage. 
The variations noted in a series of more than sixty specimens of this species are chiefly individ- 
ual and seasonal. Examples are variously intermediate, according to the season, between the two 
quite distinct stages of plumage described above as the breeding and the winter dress. Unfortu- 
nately there are very few specimens from other countries than America, so that we cannot say 
whether those from different continents differ perceptibly. Two European examples, however, in 
the winter livery, seem identical with American skins. 
The specimens in the dark, dull-colored summer plumage have been erroneously considered as 
showing a tendency toward the characters of S. melanoceplialus, or forming the “connecting link” 
between that species and S. interpres — this view being apparently based on geographical consider- 
ations, the specimens upon which this opinion was founded coming from the Prybilof Islands. 
Specimens in the same plumage occur, however, throughout the northern regions, including the 
Old World, and apparently represent simply the summer dress. 
The series of summer specimens from other localities than Alaska, however, is unfortunately 
very small ; and it may possibly prove true, that what we have described above as the breeding- 
plumage of true S. interpres represents really a darker-colored Alaskan race, and that the brighter- 
colored plumage described as the winter dress is really the full breeding-plumage of true interpres. 
However this may be, the dark Alaskan birds have nothing whatever to do with S. melanoceplialus, 
which has not only very different proportions, but also in every stage a conspicuously different 
pattern of coloration. 
The Common Turnstone is one of the most widely distributed and at the same 
time one of the most abundant of birds. Breeding in great numbers in all the high 
Arctic regions, and in the northern portions of both continents, it wanders thence 
southward over all lands. It is found at certain seasons on both the Atlantic and 
Pacific shores, and also in the interior of North and South America, as far even as the 
Straits of Magellan. It has been taken in various parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia. 
