BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 365 



although "during summer a few are found on ahnost every 

 beach along the whole extent of the sea-coast." De Kay 

 (1844) says (probably following Audubon) that it breeds from 

 Texas to Labrador. The Oyster-catcher breeds throughout 

 its range in temperate America. Durnford found it breeding 

 at Tombo Point, Patagonia, and its Pacific prototype, the Black 

 Oyster-catcher, still ranges up the coast from Lower California 

 to Alaska, and breeds there. In Puget Sound I have seen its 

 eggs laid on the rocks, and the bird sitting upon them, as 

 Audubon saw our Oyster-catcher incubating her eggs in Lab- 

 rador. Oyster-catchers are not confined normally to warm 

 climates. Wilson tells of a specimen that was sent him 

 prior to 1813, killed from a flock near Boston harbor. Linsley 

 (1843) says "the Oyster-catcher is now rare here [Stratford, 

 Conn.], but fifteen years ago they were not very uncommon 

 in autumn." Dr. Brewer himself says that a pair of these 

 birds was procured by Daniel Webster at Marshfield in the 

 summer of 1837 and presented to the Boston Society of Natural 

 History, that it was not uncommon to see specimens in the 

 Boston market, and that Boardman informed him that the 

 Oyster-catcher was seen occasionally at Calais, Me. Probably 

 it was common in early times about the sandy beaches and 

 rocky headlands guarding Boston harbor.^ 



The Oyster-catcher, being a shy bird except when it has 

 young, was probably killed off in the breeding season in the 

 country within reach of summer gunners near Boston before 

 it was extirpated from the rest of the northeast coast and that 

 of the middle States, and for that reason it was rare here in 

 Audubon's time. It has disappeared now from Labrador, the 

 Maritime Provinces, New England and the middle States, 

 and in the United States it is found only as a straggler, except 

 on the southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is growing rare 

 even on some of the shores of Florida and Texas, where once 

 it was numerous. It is destined to extermination wherever the 

 coast is settled, for it lays its eggs on the bare sand or rocks 

 or among beach grass, where they are exposed to the eggers, 



» Prof. W. W. Cooke states that Mr. W. H. Csgood saw a flock of about twenty July 20, 1897, at 

 Digby, N. S., but these must have been w^anderers from the South. (See Bull. No. 35, Biol. Surv., 

 p. 99.J 



