240 
WILD WINGS 
Southern shores and summer sands. Hence there is no 
secluded sea-beach or marsh from Texas to the polar sea 
but what may provide for the bird-lover or sportsman the 
exhilaration of the mellow, piping whistle of some shore- 
bird voice and the sight of nimble forms racing with the 
waves, or, on quick-beating wings, circling out over the 
water. To me such a shore is a hundred-fold more interest¬ 
ing than those which man has preemjjted with his tinsel 
hotels and their accessories. The margin of the sea with 
real shore-bird possibilities is a distinct type of its own; 
I can tell it at a glance, and often travel far to enjoy it. 
To the shipwrecked mariner it is a cruel desolation, but to me 
it is an insjjiration and delight. To hnd it in all its varieties 
I have journeyed to the north where chilling winds and ice- 
cold waves lashed the stern prohle of the land, and wandered 
south where soft zephyrs and tepid waters offered their blan¬ 
dishments. 
One of the loiterers which has particularlv interested me is 
the American Oyster-catcher. It is a striking sj^ecies, nearly 
as large as a crow, — indeed, it is sometimes locallv called 
“Sea-crow,” — with conspicuous black and white plumage 
and a large, red, knife-shaped bill. I have seen it at its best 
on the outer Sea Islands of the Carolina coast. There it is 
found on nearly every lonely beach with its area of shells, 
seaweed, and dry sand above the reach of the tide. Especially 
dear to it are the tiny islands which at high water are nothing 
but narrow strips of hummocky sand, almost washed over 
by the waves in ordinarv times, and inevitably in storms. 
Late in Aj^ril, or in early May, the female scratches a hollow 
on the highest mound of sand and deposits large spotted 
eggs — not four, as do most shore-birds, but only two, like 
the buzzards that wheel overhead, or the Red-tailed Hawk 
that nests back in the forest. 
