320 BULLETIN 146^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



HAEMATOPUS BACHMANI Audubon 

 BLACK OYSTER CATCHER 



HABITS 



At the northern end of their range, in the Aleutian Islands, I 

 first became acquainted with these big black waders. Here we fre- 

 quently saw them at various points, as we entered oi' left the rock- 

 bound harbors, sitting in little groups or in pairs on the rocks or 

 outlying ledges. They were surprisingly inconspicuous on the wet 

 and dark colored rocks, which were often half hidden in the prevail- 

 ing fogs. They seemed to fit very well into their dark and gloomy 

 surroundings. They were not particularly shy, as they stood on 

 the slippery rocks and nodded to us with grotesque dignity, or as 

 they flew out around us uttering their loud and penetrating cries. 



Courtship. — ^W. Leon Dawson (1909) writes: 



Left to tliemselves, the birds are no Quakers, and the antics of courtship 

 are both noisy and amusing. A certain duet, especially, consists of a series of 

 awkward bowings and bendings in which the neck is stretched to the utmost and 

 arched over stiffly into a pose as grotesque as one of Cruikshank's drawings, 

 the whole to an accompaniment of amorous clucks and wails. 



Nesting. — ^We did not succeed in finding any nests of the black 

 oyster catcher in the Aleutian Islands, though they undoubtedly 

 breed there. Dr. W. H. Dall (1873) found two nests in the Shu- 

 magins on June 23, 1872; there were two eggs "in one nest and one 

 in another, if nest it could be called, being simply a depression in 

 the gravel of the beach without even a straw to soften its asperities." 

 Dr. Wilfred H. Osgood (1901) found a nest in the Queen Charlotte 

 Islands, which " was merely a hollow about 2 inches deep and almost 

 perfectly round, scooped out of a weedy turf a few feet above high- 

 water mark. The bottom of the hollow was covered with bits of 

 broken stone, evidently placed there by the old bird." 



Referring to the rocky islands off the coast of Washington, Mr. 

 Dawson (1909) says: 



The eggs of the black oyster catcher, normally three in number, are oftenest 

 placed in the hollow of a bare rock, lined with a pint or so of rock flakes, 

 laboriously gathered. Occasionally bits of shell, especially the calcareous plates 

 of the goose barnacle, are added by way of adornment. Now and then the 

 wader emulates the gull and prepares a careful lining of grasses. One such 

 nest with three eggs I passed repeatedly, on Carroll, languidly supposing it 

 to be a gull's until Professor Jones exclaimed over it. 



For a nesting site the upper reaches of barren i-eefs or shoulders are chosen, 

 but on the smaller rocks, where the waders have exclusive rights, the eggs may 

 be lodged on the very crest of the islet. Again, upon Destruction Island, we 

 found eggs on a coarse beach gravel, where to the protection of color, stone-gray 



