THE BLACK OYSTER-CATCHER. 701 
eggs may be lodged on the very crest of the islet. Again, upon Destruction 
Island, we found eggs on a coarse beach gravel, where to the protection of 
color, stone-gray with black spots and blotches, was added the almost perfect 
assimilation of form to that of the rounded pebbles. 
Owing to the exposed situations chosen, as well as to the uncompromising 
prominence of the bird, the eggs of this Oyster-catcher are favorite provender 
for the Raven (Corvus corax principalis). From this cause alone I should 
judge that not over half the eggs laid upon the Olympiades ever hatch. 
A young Oyster-catcher is a master at freezing, and his case is helped 
somewhat by rusty feather-edgings, which enable him to blend with the sur- 
roundings. When warned, he flattens to the rock with outstretched neck and 
bill, and nothing but the parental permission or the hand of the discoverer will 
absolve him from 
his fakir vow. 
That the appear- 
ance of the fledg- 
ling is not de- 
void of interest 
is testified by L. 
M. Turner, who 
says in his “‘Con- 
tributions to the 
Natural History 
Ole lasical aay 
once procured a 
less than half- 
grown bird of 
this species, and 
if any one would 
like to have one 
it can be gotten 
up in the follow- 
ing manner: 
Take the hinder 
half of a black 
kitten, dip about 
four inches of 
its tail in red 
paint, then fasten 
to the legs a piece 
oOtetallows candle wre, sn the Geoncile Arch: Photo by the Author. 
about four inches YOUNG OYSTER-CATCHER HIDING. 
