398 OYSTERCATCHER AND TURNSTONE 



when at last she flew away they, with a few single querulous notes, 

 assumed their ordinary attitude and walked disconsolately about. 

 The flight of the female always ended the performance. Although 

 the male faces the female when he begins, " having once begun, he 

 seems more enthralled by his own music than by her, and will turn 

 from side to side, or even right round and away from her, as though 

 in the rhythmical sway of his piping." * The piping song is syllabled by 

 Mr. Selous as "kee kee kee kee kervee kervee kervee kervee kervee," a loud 

 and ear-piercing clamour. Gradually, however, it sinks, becoming in 

 its later stages quite faint, and ending commonly in a sort of long 

 drawn out quavering trill." 2 



These piping parties have also been observed by Mr. Seton 

 Gordon. His description differs somewhat, but not very essentially, 

 from that of Mr. Selous. He describes it as a " kind of follow-my-leader 

 game indulged in by three or four birds, and very often in the calm of 

 a summer evening. The birds run backwards and forwards with their 

 heads down and bills almost touching the ground." The piping notes 

 are "uttered slowly at first, but soon follow each other in rapid 

 succession." A somewhat similar action was observed during an 

 attempted eviction of a pair of oystercatchers from their home on a 

 river island by another pair of the same species. First one bird 

 appeared on the scene, and with repeated swoops drove the sitting 

 female from the eggs. " Then he (i.e. the intruding male) and the pair 

 in possession rushed backwards and forwards across the islet, whistling 

 loudly, and looking very comical with their heads almost touching the 

 ground." Whenever the female attempted to go back to her nest, 

 "the intruder went for her immediately and swooped repeatedly at 

 her, she receiving the onslaught with tail in air, which seems the 

 recognised mode of defence among ground-nesting birds." 3 



The oystercatcher makes several additional nest scrapes close to 

 the one destined to receive the eggs. 4 I can find no recorded observa- 



1 Bird Watching, p. 93. 2 Ibid., p. 92. 



3 Birds of Loch and Mountain, p. 105. 



4 Field, 1890, vol. Ixxvi. p. 214 ; Ibid., 1907, vol. cix. pp. 1070, 1071. 



