TURN STONE. 
147 
and domesticated, is said to retain the same habit.* Its bill 
seems particularly well constructed for this purpose, differing 
from all the rest of its tribe, and very much resembling, in shape, 
that of the common Nuthatch. We learn from Mr. Pennant, 
that these birds inhabit Hudson’s Bay, Greenland, and the arc- 
tic flats of Siberia, where they breed, wandering southerly in 
autumn. It is said to build on the ground, and to lay four eggs, 
of an olive colour spotted with black; and to inhabit the isles of 
the Baltic during summer. 
The Turn-stone flies with a loud twittering note, and runs 
with its wings lowered; but not with the rapidity of others of its 
tribe. It examines more completely the same spot of ground, 
and, like some of the Woodpeckers, will remain searching in the 
same place, tossing the stones and pebbles from side to side for 
a considerable time. 
These birds vary greatly in colour, scarcely two individuals 
are to be found alike in markings. These varieties are most 
numerous in autumn, when the young birds are about, and are 
less frequently met with in spring. The most perfect specimens 
I have examined are as follows: 
Length eight inches and a half, extent seventeen inches; bill 
blackish horn; frontlet, space passing through the eyes, and 
thence dropping down, and joining the under mandible, black, 
enclosing a spot of white. Crown white, streaked with black; 
breast black, whence it turns up half across the neck; behind 
the eye a spot of black; upper part of the neck white, running 
down and skirting the black breast, as far as the shoulder; up- 
per part of the back black, divided by a strip of bright ferrugi- 
nous; scapulars black, glossed with greenish, and interspersed 
with rusty red; whole back below this pure white, but hid by 
the scapulars; rump black; tail-coverts white; tail rounded, white 
at the base half, thence black to the extremity; belly and vent 
white; wings dark dusky, crossed by two bands of white; lower 
half of the lesser coverts ferruginous; legs and feet a bright ver- 
Catesby. 
