PLATE II 

 OYSTER- CATCHER. Hamatopus ostralegus 



June 4//r, 1895. This nest was almost alongside of a colony of Sandwich 

 Terns on the Wide-opens at the Fame Islands, and was a mere depression 

 in the sand among the stones and driftwood a few feet above high-water 

 mark. 



I saw the old birds running about in the vicinity of the nest, and searched 

 some time along the shore to see if I could come across it, but failed ; so I 

 retired some little distance and sat down. In about five or ten minutes all 

 the Sandwich Terns were sitting on their nests, but the Oyster-catchers were 

 still very uneasy, running backwards and forwards, but never going near the 

 nest. At last one of them settled, and I gave it two or three minutes' grace 

 and then walked up; to my utter astonishment the nest I found was empty, 

 save for one round stone, which was quite warm I I found the nest with 

 three eggs in it not ten yards from this false nest shortly afterwards. This 

 sitting upon stones is a very curious habit of the Oyster-catcher, and I have 

 noticed it on two or three occasions, and placed it quite beyond a doubt, as 

 I took the trouble to spend half a day watching one bird on the Culbin Sands 

 who had a nest of this kind with a round stone in it. I watched the bird go 

 to its nest in the first case, and put a white stone near it so as to mark it, and 

 then retired to a little distance ; when the bird returned I very carefully marked 

 it with my glasses and, after waiting about a quarter of an hour walked up ; 

 the stone was quite warm, and all the surrounding ones not in the nest, cold ! 

 I repeated the performance three times, and each time the bird flew round and 

 round me calling anxiously as I approached the nest. I returned next day 

 and found the bird on the same nest, and subsequently discovered, by shooting 

 the bird, that it was a male; the female having a nest containing three eggs 

 nearly two hundred yards distant. 



'3' 



