BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 99 



distance from the coast, and are very rarely found 

 within the Humber. I have sometimes, however, seen 

 them in the autumn associated with other small species 

 on the fallows and summer- eaten clover-fields adjoin- 

 ing the river. 



153. HJEMATOPUS OSTRALEGUS (Linnaeus). Oyster- 

 catcher. 



Provincial. Sea-Pie, Sea- Woodcock. 



Is numerous on' the flat coasts of this county, where, 

 up to quite recently, great numbers bred. Owing, 

 however, to the systematic plundering of the eggs 

 during the nesting-season, it has ceased to do so in 

 this neighbourhood, and is at present restricted as a 

 breeder to a few of the wildest localities on our coast, 

 and in greatly reduced numbers'*. 



Is yet extremely numerous in the spring, autumn, 



than any of our numerous shore birds, are the last of the migra- 

 tory Limicolae which leave our shores, and amongst the first to 

 return with the young broods in the autumn. 



* Colonel Montagu, in his 'Dictionary of British Birds' 

 (Newman's edition), p. 226, writing of the Oyster-catcher, re- 

 marks that " this species appears to be more abundant on some 

 parts of the sandy flat coast of Lincolnshire than on any other 

 part we recollect to have noticed ; and we were surprised to ob- 

 serve a very large flock of these birds assembled together in the 

 midst of the breeding-season. Upon inquiry we found that 

 at the time of incubation a remarkably high tide had swept away 

 all their eggs, together with those of the Ringed Plover and 

 Lesser Tern, which usually lay their eggs a little above high- 

 water mark. On the coast near Skegness, at a point called 



