OYSTER-CATCHERS 



(Family Hcematopodidce) 



American Oyster-Catcher 



(Hcematopus palliatus) 



Called also: BROWN-BACKED OYSTER-CATCHER; FLOOD 

 GULL 



Length 17 to 21 inches. 



Male and Female Head, neck, and upper breast black; back and 

 wings dark olive brown ; greater wing coverts, base of sec- 

 ondaries, sides of lower back, upper tail coverts, base of tail, 

 and all under parts, white. Bill coral red, twice as long as 

 head, compressed, almost like a knife-blade at end, but vary- 

 ing in shape, owing to wear and tear; feet flesh colored; 

 three toes united by a membrane to middle joint. 



Range "Sea-coasts of temperate and tropical America, from New 

 Jersey and Western Mexico to Patagonia; occasional or ac- 

 cidental on the Atlantic coast north to Massachusetts and 

 Grand Menan." A. O. U. 



Children brought up on " Alice in Wonderland " might imag- 

 ine from the name of this bird that oysters are fleet-footed racers 

 along our beaches, overtaken at the end of a breathless chase by 

 the oyster-catcher! On the New Jersey coast and southward, but 

 rarely farther north, we see (if we are cautious, far sighted-stalk- 

 ers), this curious bird actually prying open shells of bivalves oys- 

 ters less commonly, however, than mussels and some others 

 and digging up fiddler crabs and worms that have buried them- 

 selves in the soft sand, with a bill that is one of the most peculiar 

 among bird tools. Long, stout at the base, but compressed like 

 a knife blade at the end; often as worn and jagged as the opener 

 seen at a Coney Island oyster stand ; sometimes bent sideways from 

 severe wrenches ; and bright coral red this bill belongs in the 

 same class of freaks as the bills of the avocet, skimmer, curlew, 



251 



