OYSTER-CATCHER. 295 



THE OYSTEK- CATCHER is well known on the shores of 

 Great Britain and Ireland. It appears to prefer sandy bays 

 and wide inlets bounded with banks of shingle, as favourable 

 localities for the production of the various mollusca upon 

 which it principally subsists. The vertical edge of its trun- 

 cated, wedge-like beak, seems admirably adapted for insertion 

 between the two portions of a bivalve shell, and limpets are 

 detached from the surface of a rock with ease ; after which 

 the animal is scooped out as if with a knife. Its food con- 

 sists of the mollusca generally, worms, and marine insects. 

 The Oyster-catcher is a handsome bird when seen on the 

 wing, from the well-marked contrast and the purity of the 

 black and white colours of its plumage : whence its name 

 Sea-Pie; an equally appropriate name is that of ' Mussel- 

 Picker,' and in Sussex it is known as the ' Olive.' It runs 

 with rapidity, and may frequently be observed to swim short 

 distances when searching for its food, and wounded birds 

 have been known to dive. 



Although principally found on or near the coast, it is a 

 mistake to suppose that the Oyster-catcher does not straggle 

 inland, for examples have been killed even in the Midland 

 Counties. In Scotland many pairs breed on the Don, the 

 Tay, the Spey, the Findhorn, and on some inland lochs 

 twenty or thirty miles from the sea. 



The eggs are deposited above high-water mark on the 

 shingly beach, or on the narrow ledges of rocky islets, or, 

 again, amongst the sand-hills : they are frequently laid on a 

 pavement of small fragments of shells, or on a tussock of 

 sea-pink. Mr. C. M. Adamson says that he once found 

 them in a meadow at some distance from the sea ; Mr. 

 Collett mentions a clutch laid in a cavity on the top of a 

 felled pine-tree near the Trondhjems fiord ; and the Editor 

 has found them occupying the previously-robbed nest of 

 a Herring-Gull. Their number is usually three, and on the 

 rare occasions where the Editor has found four, three of 

 them invariably exhibited a family likeness, whilst the fourth 

 was different. They are of a yellowish stone -colour, spotted 

 and scrolled with ash-grey and dark brown ; and measure 



