2. H^JIATOPUS. 109 



L'Huitri.r, UAubmton, PL Enl. ix. pi. 929; Buff. Hist. Nat. Ois. 



viii. p. 119, pi. ix. (1781). 

 Pied Oystercatcher, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 1, p. 219, pi. 84 (1785). 

 Ostralega pica, Bonn. Enc. Meth. i. p. 20 (1790). . 

 Ostralega europtea, Less. Man. d'Orn. ii. p. 300 (1828) ; id. Traite 



d'Orn. p. 548(1831). 

 Hsematopus bathicus, Brekm, Vog. Deutschl. p. 5G2 (1831). 

 Heematopus orientalis, Brehm, t. c. p. 563. 

 Ostralegus vulgaris, Less. Rev. Zool. 1839, p. 47. 

 Ostralegus luematopus, Maegill. Man. Brit. B. ii. p. 59 (1842). 

 The Oyster-catcher, Tarrell, Brit. B. ii. p. 432 (1843). 



Adult male in breeding-plumage. General colour above glossy 

 black ; lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts white ; wing- 

 coverts black, the bastard-wing feathers and the median series with 

 white tips, the greater coverts pure white, with only a little blackish 

 patch concealed near the base ; primaries black, with the greater 

 part of the inner web white, except near the ends and for some 

 distance parallel to the shaft, the latter with a sub-terminal white 

 streak, widening into a broad white streak on the inner primaries, 

 the white extending on to the outer web ; secondaries puro white 

 with black tips, the central ones white, the long inner ones black ; 

 tail white, with the terminal third black, forming a broad band ; 

 head all round with the entire throat black ; undfer the eye a white 

 spot ; remainder of under surface of body, from the lower throat 

 downwards, pure white ; the feathers of the fore-neck which 

 adjoin the black throat being half white and half black, to corre- 

 spond with the adjacent plumage ; under wing-coverts and axillaries 

 white : " bill vermilion, tinged with yellow as far as the end of the 

 nasal groove, the attenuated part dull yellow ; feet pale lake or 

 purplish red ; edges of the eyelids vermilion ; iris crimson " ( W. 

 Macgillivray). Total length 16 inches, culrnen 2-9, wing 9 - 7, 

 tail 3'9, tarsus 1*95. 



Adult female. Similar to the male in plumage. Total length 

 17 inches, culmen 3*3, wing 10*1, tail 4, tarsus 2. 



Young. Browner on the back than the adults, and with more or 

 less sandy-brown vermiculations and margins to the ends of the 

 feathers ; across the middlo of the throat a broad band of white ; 

 quills with a larger expanse of white, the white on the outer web 

 of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth quills continuous with the 

 white on the inner web. 



The white band on the throat is lost during the first winter, dis- 

 appearing sooner in the females than in the males. In Eastern 

 birds this white on the throat not only persists longer than 

 in European birds, but is much more extended on the throat, 

 being spread over the whole throat up to the chin. Every one 

 ot the young birds from Karachi shows this peculiarity. A bird 

 obtained by Colonel Butler in August, with a perfectly black throat 

 and with no trace of immaturity about it, has the white patches 

 on both webs of the quills united -, but as some of the latter show 

 indications of the black extruding down the centre of the quills, it 

 is evidently impossible to find specific differences between European 



