These birds are met with in all parts of the world, everywhere occupying the sea-coast. In Scandinavia, Iceland, and Greenland, they appear at the end of April or beginning of May and leave again about the end of the last week of August, at which time they occur on the shores of the Mediterranean. They visit England regularly, remaining during the winter and going north to breed. They are restless and active birds, and run rapidly, with wings lowered, but usually only for a short distance, pausing from time to time, for a few moments, in the course of their swift career; their flight is easy, and accompanied by a variety of graceful evolutions. Their cry, which is shrill and penetrating, is uttered with such various degrees of rapidity, as to produce very different effects. In disposition they are cautious and usually shy. Audubon states that he had ocular demonstration of the fact, that, as its name imports, this species actually turns over stones and other objects to search for food, and gives the following interesting account of the proceedings of four of these birds, which he observed on the beach of Gaveston Island, whilst he was engaged together with a sailor in carrying the carcase of a deer to be washed:--"They merely," he says, "ran a little distance out of our course, and on our returning came back immediately to the same place; this they did four different times, and after we were done remained busily engaged in searching for food. None of them were more than fifteen or twenty yards distant, and I was delighted to see the ingenuity with which they turned over the oyster-shells, clods of mud, and other small bodies left exposed by the retiring tide. Whenever the object was not too large, the bird bent its legs to half their length, placed its bill beneath it, and with a sudden, quick jerk of the head pushed it off, when it quickly picked up the food which was thus exposed to view, and walked deliberately to the next shell to perform the same operation. In some instances when the clusters of oyster-shells or clods of mud were too heavy to be removed in the ordinary manner, they would not only use the bill and head, but also the breast, pushing the object with all their strength, and reminding me of the labour which I have undergone in turning over a large turtle. Among the seaweeds which had been cast on the shore they used only the bill, tossing the garbage from side to side with a dexterity extremely pleasant to behold. In this manner I saw these four Turnstones examine almost every portion of the shore, along a space of from thirty to forty yards; after which I drove them away, that our hunters might not kill them on their return."