Turnstone

TURNSTONE, the name long given l to a shore-bird, from its habit of turning over with its bill such stones as it can to seek its food in the small crustaceans or other animals lurking beneath them. It is the Tringa interpret* of Linnaeus and Strepsilas inlerpres of most later writers, and is remarkable as being perhaps the most cosmopolitan of birds; for, though properly belonging to the northern hemisphere, there is scarcely a sea-coast in the world on which it may not occur: it has been obtained from Spitzbergen to the Strait of Magellan and from Point Barrow to the Cape of Good Hope and New Zealand — examples from the southern lemisphere being, however, almost invariably in a state of plumage that shows, if not immaturity, yet an ineptitude for reproduction. It also, though much less commonly, resorts 1 The name seems to appear first in F. Willughby's Ornithologia (p. 231) in 1676; but he gave as an alias that of Sea-Dottrel, under which name a drawing, figured by him (pi. 58), was sent to him by Sir Thomas Browne. 1 Linnaeus (Oel. och GoMdndska Resa, p. 217), who first met with this bird on the island of Gottland (July I, 1741), was under the mistaken belief that it was there called Tolk (=interpres).

But that name properly belongs to the REDSHANK (o.i>.), from the cry of warning to other animals that it utters on the approach of danger.