366 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



who consider them a great dehcacy and its large size and con- 

 spicuous pkunage assure its destruction by gunners who shoot 

 in summer when the young are unable to fly. 



The Oyster-catcher is a bird of lonely open beaches and 

 rocky shores by the sea. It may be found about inlets and 

 lagoons in the south, but never far from the salt water. Its 

 large size, striking ])lumage and loud cries make it a very 

 conspicuous bird, and it is easily alarmed and difficult to 

 approach, except in the breeding season, when its solicitude 

 for its eggs or young lead it to discard its customary caution. 

 It formerly wintered from Maryland to the Gulf, and was 

 seen at that season in flocks. The flocks moved in lines, 

 wheeling and turning with the precision of trained soldiers 

 on parade. At such times they presented a striking picture, 

 their black and white plumage flashing in the sun. 



There has been some discussion as to whether this bird 

 really eats oysters. Wilson and some other ornithologists 

 doubt that it ever eats them; Audubon avers that it eats 

 the small "racoon" oysters that grow on bars in shallow 

 water in the south, where the ebb tide uncovers them. Oysters 

 in such situations cannot exist long in the north, because the 

 frost kills them at low tide in winter. Therefore in the north 

 our bird was never seen to eat oysters, although it may have 

 taken a few occasionally in shallow water. I frequently have 

 seen the Oyster-catcher acting the part assigned him. Once 

 near Mosquito Inlet on the Halifax River on the Florida coast 

 one of my companions shot one of these birds which, when 

 held up by the legs, emitted from its mouth quite a quantity 

 of "coon oysters." Maynard records a similar occurrence. 

 The bright peculiar beak is shaped somewhat like an oyster 

 knife, and the bird plunges this sharp weapon into an incautious 

 and partly opened bivalve, and, swiftly cutting the closing 

 muscle, opens the oyster like a professional oyster-opener. 

 Wayne says "I have seen these birds open raccoon oysters by 

 inserting the bill into the gaping shell, like a wedge, when the 

 shell at once opens." These little oysters, however, are of no 

 commercial value, and the bird was never known to trouble 

 oysters which are grown for commercial purposes on beds in 



