498 THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



290. Oyster catcher [AUSTERNFISCHER]. 

 ILEMATOPUS OSTRALEGUS, Linn. 



Heligolandish : Liiew. Name given to the Oystercatcher, and probably 

 formed onomatoposically after the call-note. 



Hcematopus ostralegus. Naumann, vii. 325. 



Oystercatcher. Dresser, vii. 587. 



Huiterier pie. Temminck, Manuel, ii. 531, iv. 351. 



It is indeed impossible to discover how this bird has come by 

 its name ; for it would be but a sorry look-out for it if it had to 

 sustain itself on oysters fished up by its own exertions, and even 

 if a happy chance were to bring one of these luscious molluscs in 

 its way it would not even be able to open it. However, it has got 

 the name somehow, and godfathers and godmothers in baptism 

 must be held responsible for it. In Heligoland it is very com- 

 mon, its loud call-note, well known to everybody, being heard 

 at all times of migration during the day, a'nd still more frequently 

 at night. It, however, very rarely chooses this island as a place 

 to stay in ; some of them may perhaps roam about the dunes 

 for a few days, apparently having their minds ' on thoughts 

 of breeding bent.' During the summer months handsome old 

 birds are often met with leading an apparently roving and 

 aimless existence; and what is still more singular, birds which 

 can by no means be regarded as stragglers are again seen in the 

 winter during a severe frost. 



I have been told by old people that before Heligoland became 

 a sea-bathing resort, when the sand-island was much larger, and 

 only visited in exceptional cases, scattered pairs of Oystercatchers 

 used to breed annually on its southern tongue, which at that 

 time was much longer and broader, and was composed of sand and 

 gravel. Similar attempts at breeding, however, have only been 

 made twice or three times within the last fifty years, and have 

 only in one instance led to the production of offspring. The 

 individuals which are met with here, under favourable conditions 

 of weather, etc., are most frequently young birds of the year. 

 I remember a very strong migration of all kinds of shore-birds 

 which happened one August in the forties, there being at the 

 time a light easterly breeze and heavy rainfall, in the course of 

 which I shot, in less than three hours of the morning, besides count- 

 less other objects, some fifty young Golden Plovers. Turnstones, 

 Knots and Dunlins, Ringed Plovers, Sanderlings, all of them 

 young birds, were migrating at the time in large flocks overhead, 

 and swarming about in immense numbers in all directions. Young 

 Oystercatchers were present in such numbers that on one occasion 



