BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 367 



deeper water. The Oyster-catcher does not dive except when 

 hard pressed, but gets its food on or near the surface, although 

 it can dive and swim well at need. The bill often is much 

 worn by hard usage and sometimes bent to one side. The 

 bird is not by any means confined to an oyster diet, and in- 

 habits coasts where oysters are never found. Its knife-shaped 

 beak is used in opening mussels, in knocking or chiselling 

 limpets off the rocks, in opening sea urchins and even in catch- 

 ing a few small fish. Audubon says that it eats crabs, sea- 

 worms, shrimps and "razor-handles" or solens. He watched 

 it with an excellent telescope and saw it pat the sand with its 

 feet to "force out insects." 



The Oyster-catcher gets its food from the ocean and its 

 shores, and harms no man. It is a handsome creature, whose 

 alert presence and harmonious cries once lent to our beaches 

 a charm now gone forever. Its extirpation in New England 

 lias served no good purpose, but merely adds another item 

 to the accounting that shall put "our race and time to shame 

 in the age to come." 



Bob-whites. 



The American Partridges (family Odontophoridce) are small 

 in size, with the head usually well feathered and sometimes 

 crested. They are distinguished from the Grouse by the small 

 size, lack of feathers on the tarsi or toes, and by the naked 

 scale which covers the nostrils. There is much variation in 

 plumage among the difterent species, which are well represented 

 in the southwestern United States and in subtropical America. 

 The Bob-whites occupy the temperate and tropical regions 

 of America and are not found elsewhere. There is but one 

 species in eastern North America, with a subspecies in Florida 

 which is much smaller than the northern bird and somewhat 

 darker. The species ranges over the greater part of the 

 eastern United States, mainly in open country, and is one of the 

 most prized of all American game birds. The elegant, plumed 

 and crested Quails or Partridges belong mainly to the mountain 

 regions of the west and the Pacific slope. Some species have 

 been introduced in the east but have not become acclimated. 



