170 
CHARADRIIDiE. 
TUENSTONE. 
Streiosilas inter'pres. 
STANEPECKER. 
The Turnstone arrives regularly in summer, and again in 
]\Iarch or April, a few remaining throughout the winter. More 
than half a dozen are seldom observed together, but upon rare 
occasions I have seen as many as twenty or thirty. When 
Turnstones are in company with other species they are not very 
difficult to approach, but having been once fired at, they will 
remain shy for weeks afterwards. On being disturbed, they 
nearly always utter their loud peculiar cry, which, by the way, 
it is not quite impossible to imitate by unscrewing the tight- 
fitting lid of an old-fashioned “powder-puff box,” — and they 
invariably fly seawards, seldom alighting until they have several 
times passed and repassed the selected spot. When wounded, 
they swim with the greatest ease, and will even take to the 
water voluntarily when closely pursued, but I have never yet 
seen one attempt to dive. It is a matter of surprise that so 
careful an observer as Macgillivray should have regarded “ their 
alleged stone-turning habits as a fable.” I have watched these 
birds for hours at a time, and besides witnessing the act re- 
peatedly, have afterwards visited the ground, where the dis- 
placement of stones and shells, and even the completely reversed 
position of some, has been quite sufficient to prove the existence 
of the habit in question. Such traces are of course most readily 
observed upon a sandy beach where the stones are few and 
scattered ; but, indeed, it is chiefly among sea-weed that this 
pecrdiar method of searching for food is employed, the wet ap- 
pearance of the newly-turned portions of the masses of drifted 
weed making them evident enough to an observant eye. 
Although this bird mostly frequents rocky shores, the sands, 
during stormy weather or immediately afterwards, appear to 
be very attractive. 
Thomas Edmondston, seeing this bird in the north of Shet- 
land at all times of the year, considered it resident ; and though 
