PLATE I 

 OYSTER-CATCHER Hamatopus ostralegus 



May 29/A, 1896. This nest was on a small island in the Spey just below 

 Aviemore, Rothiemurchus. The Oyster-catcher is very abundant on all the 

 gravel-banks on this part of the river, and numbers of its eggs are annually 

 destroyed by the sudden rising of the water. On the small island on which the 

 nest in the Plate was placed, I came across no less than five nests, all but one 

 containing newly-hatched young. They are very hard to distinguish among 

 the stones and little patches of moss, as they crouch motionless, and look just 

 like little clods of earth or bits of driftwood. 



All the time I was engaged in photographing this nest the old birds flew 

 shrieking round me, sometimes alighting within a few yards of me, and running 

 along with bent head and outstretched wings, endeavouring to lure me from 

 the nest. 



The nests were nearly all upon the bare stones, simply a hollow from which 

 the larger stones had been removed, and smaller ones and bits of stick or 

 broken shells put in their places. Some of them were close to some larger 

 stones or tufts of earth and grass. I put up one or two birds from nests which 

 contained nothing but one roundish stone on which the bird was sitting. The 

 eggs are systematically taken by the boys about the place, who search the 

 gravel banks for them in the evenings, and take them away to eat. 



On my way to fish one day I saw three young Oyster-catchers swim across 

 a broad backwater and hide themselves among the grass on the river bank. 

 I was some distance off, and went to look at them, to see that they were really 

 Oyster-catchers. I have only seen them do this once before, and that was 

 under the same circumstances on the river Findhorn in 1887. 



2 L 129 



