Turnstone
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Turnstone. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the Strepsilas, a small genus of birds of the plover family (Charadriidæ), intermediate between the true plovers and sandpipers. The common turnstone (S. interpres) appears in Great Britain as a winter migrant, but is not known to breed there; its breeding places being the shores of the Arctic Ocean in Europe, Asia, and America, though it breeds on the coasts of Scandinavia down to Denmark, laying four eggs of a greenish-gray color, spotted and streaked with bluish-ash and brown, in a shallow depression lined with a few dry leaves and bents. In winter the turnstone is found on the seashore all over the world, being probably the most cosmopolitan of all birds. It derives its name from its habit of turning over stones with its bill in search of its food, 1000 which consists of small crustaceans and mollusks. The common turnstone is nine inches in length, and is handsomely marked with black, white, and chestnut; the last-named color is reduced in autumn, when the plumage becomes duller; the legs and feet are orange. Another species, the black-headed turnstone (S. melanocephalus), breeds in Alaska and winters in California; and some place the surf-bird (Aphriza virgata) in this genus.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a bird of the snipe kind. It is a shore bird. It gains its name from a habit of running along the shore of the sea turning stones over with its bill in search of insect food. Several distinct species are found along the seashore everywhere. Some of the local names are surfbird, calicoback, maggotsnipe, tanglepicker, chuckatuck, jinny, etc. The turnstone is closely allied to the plover and the sandpiper. See Snipe ; Sandpiper
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The birds behave exactly as described, but the labels have moved. The genus Strepsilas of Collier's 1921 entry is obsolete: the common bird is now Arenaria interpres, called the ruddy turnstone, and the black-headed turnstone is Arenaria melanocephala; both are placed with the sandpipers in the family Scolopacidae rather than with the plovers in Charadriidae, and the surf-bird has been moved away into Calidris. Collier's guess that the turnstone is "probably the most cosmopolitan of all birds" has held up rather well , and leg-band and geolocator tracking since the 2000s has filled in the migration the old writers could only infer, recording individual turnstones covering thousands of kilometres between Arctic breeding grounds and southern-hemisphere shores. What has changed most is the outlook: Arctic-breeding shorebirds including the turnstone have been recorded in steep decline along several flyways, a concern absent from both accounts.
Written for this edition, 2026.