THE OYSTER-CATCHERS. 1S3 



Over the sands, as the latter are left by the receding tide. 

 They will also feed on the edge of the saltings along the 

 margin of the tide. Some which I had in confinement for 

 several years were pretty ornaments to the garden, but were 

 always shy and never became tame, while their soft feet were 

 soon cut about on the hard ground in frosty weather. When 

 undisturbed, the males were rather fond of executing a kind of 

 dance, with their wings expanded. Although this bird may 

 not feed on oysters, as its name would imply, it devours 

 whelks, limpets, and small marine animals and Crustacea, as 

 well as leaves and shoots of marine plants. It does not eat 

 the shell of the whelk, but scoops its animal out with its power- 

 ful bill, and in pursuit of this kind of food the Oyster-catcher 

 often frequents the rocks at low tide. I have seen numbers of 

 them feeding and digging into the sand when the latter is 

 quite dry, doubtless probing after some hidden mollusc, and 

 the birds may always be observed from the railway as it skirts 

 Morecambe Bay, as they often feed at no great distance from 

 the line. 



Nest. — Mr. Seebohm writes : " A peculiarity attached to the 

 identification of the Oyster-catcher is the number of nests it 

 forms and then deserts, ere making one to its liking. Frequently 

 several empty nests are found near the one that is tenanted, as 

 though the bird had tried several times before it had been 

 suited. The nest is merely a little hollow amongst the rough 

 shingle and broken shells, or in the sand, about six inches 

 across and about one inch deep, and this is lined with little 

 scraps of shells and small pebbles, generally more or less 

 neatly and smoothly arranged. Sometimes the eggs are 

 deposited in a little hollow amongst the drifted seaweed." The 

 eggs of this bird have been found in several extraordinary 

 situations, as, for instance, in a field and on the trunk of a 

 felled pine-tree. A nest in the British Museum was taken by 

 Mr. Bidwell in the Scilly Islands. It is a somewhat deep 

 depression in the peaty moss, and the three eggs lie side by 

 side, with a number of cockle-shells, one or two of which are 

 also strewn about outside." 



Eggs. — Mr. Robert Read writes to me : " Like the Ringed 

 Sand-Plover, the Oyster-catcher breeds freely along the shores 



