OYSTER-CATCHEU. 297 



extent, on the salt lakes of the A.val ; and thence it seems 

 to stretch north-eastward across Siberia, where Dr. Finsch 

 found it at Obdorsk, close to the Arctic Circle. Beyond this 

 there is a break in its distribution, and the bird found by 

 Shrenck on the Ussuri, a tributary of the Amoor, and also 

 on the latter river, and at Narim, in Eastern Siberia, belongs, 

 according to Taczanowski, to the somewhat larger, lono-er- 

 billed form, with less white on the primaries, found in 

 China, to which Swinhoe gave the name of H. osculans. 

 This form is probably the one obtained by Middendorf in 

 the Sea of Okotsk, and by Pallas in Kamtschatka and on 

 the Kurile Islands, and which is supposed to occur in Japan, 

 as it certainly does in China down to Swatow, breeding in 

 Talien Bay. In New Zealand and Australia, reaching up 

 to Arracan, China, and Japan, is found H. longirostris, 

 which has a very long bill, and no white on the primaries. 

 In India our Oyster-catcher does not seem to have occurred 

 to the east of Burma, and both on the mainland and 

 in Ceylon it is mainly a winter visitant ; on the coast of 

 Baluchistan and in the Persian Gulf it is not uncom- 

 mon ; and Severtzoff states that it migrates through the 

 Pamir range. It is found during the cool season along 

 the coast of North Africa from Morocco to Egypt, and can 

 be traced down the Red Sea, where Von Heuglin thinks it 

 is resident, to Mozambique on the east side ; whilst on the 

 west coast of Africa it is recorded from Senegambia. 



The beak is three inches long, of a deep orange at the 

 base, lighter in colour towards the tip, greatly compressed, 

 and ending in a thin vertical edge ; the irides crimson ; tlje 

 eyelid reddish-orange, with a white spot below the eye ; the 

 whole of the head, the neck all round, the upper part of the 

 breast, scapulars, interscapulars, smaller wing-coverts, quill- 

 feathers, and the distal half of the tail-feathers, black; 

 the back, great wing-coverts, part of the inner web of the 

 primaries, upper tail-coverts, the basal half of the tail- 

 feathers, the lower part of the breast, all the under surface 

 of the body, under surface of the wings, and the axillary 

 plume, pure white : the greater coverts forming a white bar 



VOL. III. 



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