PIED OYSTER-CATCHER. 19 



The principal food, however, of this bird, according 

 to European writers, and that from which it derives its 

 name, is the oyster, which it is said to watch for, and 

 snatch suddenly from the shells, whenever it surprises 

 them sufficiently open. In search of these, it is reported 

 that it often frequents the oyster beds, looking out for 

 the slightest opening through which it may attack its 

 unwary prey. For this purpose the form of its bill 

 seems very fitly calculated. Yet the truth of these 

 accounts are doubted by the inhabitants of Egg Harbour, 

 and other parts of our coast, who positively assert, that 

 it never haunts such places, but confines itself almost 

 solely to the sands: and this opinion I am inclined to 

 believe correct ; having myself uniformly found these 

 birds on the smooth beach bordering the ocean, and on 

 the higher, dry, and level sands, just beyond the reach 

 of the summer tides. On this last situation, where the 

 dry flats are thickly interspersed with drifted shells, I 

 have repeatedly found their nests, between the middle 

 and 25th of May. The nest itself is a slight hollow in 

 the sand, containing three eggs, somewhat less than 

 those of a hen, and nearly of the same shape, of a bluish 

 cream colour, marked with large roundish spots of 

 black, and others of a fainter tint. In some, the ground 

 cream colour is destitute of the bluish tint, the blotches 

 larger, and of a deep brown. The young are hatched 

 about the 25th of May, and sometimes earlier, having 

 myself caught them running along the beach about that 

 period. They are at first covered with down of a 

 grayish colour, very much resembling that of the sand, 

 and marked with a streak of brownish black on the 

 back, rump, and neck, the breast being dusky, where 

 in the old ones it is black. The bill is at that age 

 slightly bent downwards at the tip, where, like most 

 other young birds, it has a hard protuberance that 

 assists them in breaking the shell ; but in a few days 

 afterwards this falls off.* These run along the shore 

 with great ease and swiftness. 



* Latham observes, that the young are said to be hatched in 

 about three weeks ; and though they are wild when in flocks, yet 



