TURNSTONES 
185 
plain; below decidedly spotted instead of barred. Juvenile in general colour is half-way 
between the autumn Knot and the Wandering Tattler. Rack, evenly grey, tending to- 
wards the ashy of the Knot and with similar fine, white, semicircular feather edge markings. 
The breast is more heavily striped and spotted than in either, and the white rump is 
distinctive. 
Field Marks. A medium-sized wader with bill as short as the head, considerable 
white on inner secondaries and white rump. In spring, breast and underparts coarsely 
and heavily spotted. In autumn, a grey and white wader with decidedly but softly streaked 
breast and foreneck. 
Distribution. Pacific coast of North and South America. Breeds in the interior of 
west Alaska and Yukon. Nest only lately discovered. Winters on the outer coast of Van- 
couver Island and the coast of southern Bouth America. 
As its name implies, it is a bird of the surf. It is found on the shores 
of rocky islets that receive the full heave of the open sea, amidst the spume 
and spray of the breakers. 
Subfamily — Arenariinae. T urnstones 
Medium-sized shore birds, coloured in striking and pronounced pattern. 
Bill moderately short, slightly turned up and horny for terminal half. 
The tip is slightly flattened in horizontal plane, but not distinctly enlarged 
as in the plovers (Figure 264, compare with 259 and 263). 
283a. Common Turnstone, calico plover, le tourne-pierre commun. Aren- 
aria interpres. L, 9-50. 
Distinctions. A strikingly coloured bird. Back in rather broad masses of dull red, 
black, and white more or less intermixed. Rump and head white, the crown striped with 
brown or black. Underparts pure white, with black breast-band extending up side of 
neck to face where it makes a circle through the eye and around a white loral spot (Figure 
265). Autumn birds have the colours subdued and the back coloration lost or only faintly 
represented, but enough of the face and breast markings always remain to suggest the above 
diagnosis. 
Figure 264 Figure 265 
Bill of Turnstone; Turnstone: scale, U 
natural size. 
Field Marks. The peculiar pied coloration in red, black, and white of the spring 
plumage. In the autumn the white lower back and upper tail-coverts separated by a 
dark bar. 
Nesting. Depression in the ground lined with a few dead leaves or vegetable fibres. 
Distribution. The turnstone as a species has one of the widest distributions of any 
bird, there being few T countries where it has not occurred. The American subspecies, the 
Ruddy Turnstone, breeds from the Arctic coast west of Hudson Bay northward, and is 
more common on the Atlantic than the Pacific coast. Migrates throughout most of 
southern Canada except the interior of British Columbia. Rather scarcer in Saskatchewan 
and Alberta than in Manitoba and on the coasts. 
SUBSPECIES. The turnstone is represented in America by the Ruddy Turnstone 
(le Tourne-pierre Roux) Arenaria interpres morinella, rather smaller than the European 
form, Arenaria interpres interpres , more red above and legs less intensely vermilion. The 
latter subspecies may occur on the British Columbia coast. 
