682 OYSTER-CATCHER 



feed upon oysters met with general approval, and the new name 

 has, at least in books, almost wholly replaced what seems to have 

 been the older one. 1 The Oyster-catcher of Europe is the Hsema- 

 topus 2 ostralegus of Linnaeus, belonging to the group now called 

 Limicolse, and is generally included in the Family Charadriidse ; 

 though some writers have placed it in one of its own, HstmcUopodidaf, 

 chiefly on account of its peculiar bill a long thin wedge, ending in 

 a vertical edge. Its feet also are much more fleshy than are gener- 

 ally seen in the Plover Family. In its strongly-contrasted plumage 

 of black and white, with a coral-coloured bill, the Oyster-catcher is 

 one of the most conspicuous birds of the European coasts, and in 

 many parts is still very common. It is nearly always seen paired, 

 though the pairs collect in prodigious flocks ; and, when these are 

 broken up, its shrill but musical cry of " tu-lup," " tu-lup," some- 

 what pettishly repeated, helps to draw attention to it. Its wari- 

 ness, however, is very marvellous, and even at the breeding-season, 

 when most birds throw off their shyness, it is not easily approached 

 within ordinary gunshot distance. The hen-bird commonly lays 

 three clay -coloured eggs, blotched with black, in a very slight 

 hollow on the ground, not far from the sea. As incubation goes 

 on the hollow is somewhat deepened, and perhaps some haulm is 

 added to its edge, so that at last a very fair nest is the result. 

 The young, as in all Limicolte, are at first clothed in down, so 

 mottled in colour as closely to resemble the shingle to which, if 

 they be not hatched upon it, they are almost immediately taken by 

 their parents, and there, on the slightest alarm, they squat close to 

 elude observation. This species occurs on the British coasts (very 

 seldom shewing itself inland) all the year round ; but there is some 

 reason to think that those we have in winter are natives of more 

 northern latitudes, while our home-bred birds leave us. It ranges 

 from Iceland to the shores of the Red Sea, and lives chiefly on 

 marine worms, Crustacea, and such mollusks as it is able to obtain. 

 It is commonly supposed to be capable of prizing limpets from their 

 rock, and of opening the shells of mussels ; but, though undoubt- 

 edly it feeds on both, further evidence as to the way in which it 



1 It seems however very possible, judging from its equivalents in other 

 European languages, such as the Frisian Oestervisscher, the German Austcrmann, 

 Austernfischer, and the like, that the name " Oyster-catcher " may have been not 

 a colonial invention but indigenous to the mother-country, though it had not 

 found its way into print before. The French Huitrier, however, appears to be a 

 word coined by Brisson. " Sea-Pie " has its analogues in the French Pie-de-Mer, 

 the German Meerelster, Seeelster, and so forth. 



2 Whether it be the Hs&matopus whose name is found in some editions of 

 Pliny (lib. x. cap. 47) is at best doubtful. Other editions have Himantopus ; 

 but Hardouin prefers the former reading. Both words have passed into modern 

 ornithology, the latter as the generic name of the STILT ; and some writers have 

 blended the two in the strange and impossible compound H&mantopus. 



