FAMILY HAEMATOPODIDAE 381 



The 3 heavily incubated eggs were placed in a slight depression with- 

 out lining in an open expanse of sand, back of the high water mark, 

 clearly visible at a distance of 15 meters. They are oval in shape, 

 with a slightly roughened shell that is without gloss. The ground 

 color is very pale buff, rather evenly spotted with small irregular 

 marks of fuscous, that appear dull gray to bluish gray where over- 

 laid by a deposit of shell. They measure 57.5x37.6, 57.6x38.3, and 

 59.5x38.1 mm. 



Oystercatchers throughout the world are closely similar in ap- 

 pearance, particularly in the more common color pattern in which 

 the underparts are white. Those of this type of the Old World have 

 the back and rump clear white, while the eye, feet, and tarsi are 

 red. In the New World all have dark-colored backs, only the sides of 

 the rump and the upper tail coverts being white. The eye is bright 

 yellow, and the legs and feet are flesh color or faintly pinkish white. 

 While these are not great differences they are clearcut and are 

 constant, and therefore sufficient to indicate two specific groups 

 Haematopus ostralegus for the Old World and Haematopus palliatus 

 for the Americas. 



As a whole, the white-breasted New World populations are darker 

 colored above along the Pacific coast and lighter in the Atlantic area. 

 The eastern group appears fairly uniform from New Jersey south 

 to Florida, west to Texas and the Yucatan Peninsula, and through 

 the West Indies, on the Guajira Peninsula of northeastern Colombia, 

 and in northern Venezuela. The bird is not known in the Caribbean 

 coastal area from British Honduras, to central Colombia, or along 

 the Atlantic coast from eastern Venezuela to northern Brazil. In 

 the latter country oystercatchers appear on the coast of Para and 

 range southward to Santa Cruz in southern Argentina. Through this 

 vast area the birds are remarkably uniform. Some from the Bahama 

 Islands have larger bills and have been recognized as a subspecies 

 H. p. prattii Maynard, with a range that extends through the Greater 

 and Lesser Antilles and the islands off the north coast of Venezuela. 

 The character, however, is one that is not constant, nor does larger 

 size, alleged in a longer wing, hold, so that the supposed subspecies 

 is one of doubtful value. 



In the far south in Argentina, from the east coast of the Province 

 of Buenos Aires to southern Patagonia, oystercatchers average faintly 

 browner above, and are known as Haematopus palliatus durnfordi 

 Sharpe. 



Along the Pacific coast from Baja California to Guerrero, Mexico, 

 the breeding birds are recognized as H. p. frazari Brewster. Com- 



