OYSTER-CATCHER. 



9 



outermost wing-coverts, which are black. Bill and orbits orange-vermilion ; 

 legs and feet pinkish red, claws nearly black ; irides crimson. The female 

 does not differ from the male in colour. In winter a narrow white band 

 extends from the chin meeting a broad white band, extending from the tips 

 of the ear-coverts across the throat, and the white spot under the eye 

 becomes larger. In birds of the year the black is suffused with brown, and 

 the white patch on the throat is larger; whilst in young in first plumage 

 the greater wing-coverts, innermost secondaries, and scapulars have pale 

 buff margins, the longest upper tail-coverts are barred with buff and black 

 at the tip, and, as in adult summer plumage, there is no white on the 

 throat*. The general colour of the upper parts and throat of the young 

 in down is grey, with blackish marks on the head and back, the underparts 

 below the throat being white. 



* Curiously enough the young in first plumage of the East Palsearctic species, H. osculans, 

 has the inside web of the primaries marked with white, as in the adult of the West 

 Palsearctic species, but the white on the outside web is the same as in that of the adult of 

 the East Palaearctic species. It is a remarkable fact that Dresser should have omitted to 

 describe the young in first plumage of so common a bird as the Oyster-catcher ; he pro- 

 bably thought that it was similar to what he vaguely calls young in autumn dress, his 

 description of which is that of a bird of the year. 



