312 BULLETIN 146, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



hollow in the sand was empty. While I was watching the curious antics of 

 the female she had lifted the eggs between her legs and carried them of£. 

 So without giving time for her to repeat the offense I hurried to her new 

 quarters and secured them successfully. 



Eggs. — The oyster catcher lays two or three eggs, more often the 

 latter I believe, and very rarely four. They are ovate to elongate 

 ovate in shape and have only a very slight gloss. The ground color 

 is usually " cartridge buff," sometimes it is " pale olive buff " and 

 rarely " deep olive buff " or dull " chamois." They are irregularly 

 and rather sparingly marked with spots and small blotches, occasion- 

 ally a few scrawls of black, brownish black, or very dark browns, 

 " mummy brown " or " bister," and underlying spots in various 

 shades of " Quaker drab " or " mouse gray." The measurements of 

 56 eggs average 55.7 by 38.7 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four 

 extremes measure 62 by 38.9, 57.2 by 42.2, 51.8 by 39.9, and 52 by 

 33.5 millimeters. 



Young. — The period of incubation for the European species is 

 from 21 to 24 days, and both sexes share in this duty, though it is 

 mostly performed by the female. We have no data on this subject 

 for the American species, but probably it is not much different. 

 When the temperature is just right the eggs may be left exposed 

 to the sun, but at night or when it is too hot or too cold they are 

 covered by the incubating bird, whose judgment is reliable in such 

 matters. 



The young are able to run soon after they are hatched, and when 

 they become strong on their legs they can run so fast that it is 

 very difficult to catch them. At a note of warning from their watch- 

 ful parents, they squat in the sand, or against some convenient object, 

 and remain perfectly still, their protective coloring making them 

 almost invisible. Both parents show their anxiety by flying around, 

 usually at a safe distance, and yelling their loud notes of protest. 

 Herbert K. Job (1905) once hunted thoroughly over a barren strip 

 of sand, where he knew there was a young oyster catcher, without 

 success ; he was about to give it up and go away, when he saw a little 

 wisp of drif tweed at the water's edge on a strip of bare wet sand; 

 and beside it the young bird was lying, flat on the sand and abso- 

 lutely motionless. It did not move while he was photographing it, 

 but as soon as it was touched off it ran as fast as it could go. 



Plumages. — In the downy young oyster catcher the upper parts 

 are grizzled with pale buff and dusky ; the down is dusky basally and 

 heavily tipped with " pinkish buff " ; the crown is mostly pale buff 

 and the hind neck and throat are mostly dusky; the back appears 

 more mottled and has two quite distinct, broad stripes of brownish 

 black; there is sometimes a similar broad stripe on the nape; a 



