PIED OYSTER-CATCHER. 13 



shell fish. Their larger prey is sometimes the small bur- 

 rowing crabs called Fiddlers, as well as muscles, solens, and 

 oysters, their reputed prey in Europe. They seldom, how- 

 ever, molest the larger shell-fish in the United States, pre- 

 ferring smaller and less precarious game. Catesby, at the 

 same time, asserts that he found oysters in the stomach, and 

 Willughby adds, that they sometimes swallowed entire lim- 

 pets. According to Belon, the organ of digestion is indeed 

 spacious and muscular, and the flesh of the bird is black, 

 hard, and rank flavored. Yet in the opinion of some, the 

 young, when fat, are considered as agreeable food. The 

 nests of the Oyster-catchers are said often to be made in 

 the herbage of the salt marshes, but on the Atlantic coast 

 they commonly drop their eggs in slight hollows scratched 

 in the coarse sand and drift, in situations just sufiiciently 

 elevated above the reach of the summer tides. The eggs 

 about 3 or 4, laid from the first to the third week in May, 

 are nearly the size of those of the domestic hen, of a bluish 

 or simple cream color, inclining to olive, marked with large 

 roundish spots of two shades of brownish black. From the 

 15th to the 25th of May, the young are hatched, and run 

 about nimbly almost as soon as they escape from the shell. 

 At first they are covered with a down nearly the color of the 

 sand, but marked with a line of brownish black on the back, 

 rump, and neck. In some parts of Europe, they are so re- 

 markably gregarious in particular breeding spots, that a 

 bushel of their eggs in a few hours might be collected 

 from the same place. 



Like Gulls, and other birds of this class, incubation costs 

 much less labor than among the smaller birds, for the female 

 sits on her eggs only during the night and morning, or in 

 cold and rainy weather. The heat of the sun and sand 

 alone being generally sufficient to hatch them, without the 

 aid of the bird by day. The nest is, however, assiduously 

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