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THE AMERICAN OYSTER-CATCHER. 



Hjematopus palliatus, Temm. 



PLATE CCXXIII. Male. 



Our Oyster-Catcher has a very extensive range. It spends the win- 

 ter along the coast from Maryland to the Gulf of Mexico, and being then 

 abundant on the shores of the Floridas, may be considered a constant 

 resident in the United States. At the approach of spring, it removes to- 

 ward the Middle States, where, as well as in North Carolina, it breeds. It 

 seems scarcer between Long Island and Portland in Maine, where you 

 again see it, and whence it occurs all the way to Labrador, in which coun- 

 try I found that several were breeding in the month of July. Unless in 

 winter, when these birds assemble in parties of twenty-five or thirty indivi- 

 duals, they are seldom met with in greater numbers than from one to 

 four pairs, with their families, which appear to remain with the parent 

 birds until the following spring. It is never found inland, nor even far 

 up our largest rivers, but is fond of remaining at all times on the sandy 

 beaches and rocky shores of our salt-water bays or marshes. In Labra- 

 dor, I met with it farther from the open sea than^in any other part, yet 

 always near salt-water. I have never met with any other species on the 

 coasts of North America. 



Shy, vigilant, and ever on the alert, the Oyster-Catcher walks with a 

 certain appearance of dignity, greatly enhanced by its handsome plumage 

 and remarkable bill. If you stop to watch it, that instant it sounds a 

 loud shrill note of alarm ; and should you advance farther towards it, 

 when it has neither nest nor young, off it flies quite out of sight. Few 

 birds, indeed, are more difficult to be approached, and the only means of 

 studying its habits I found to be the use of an excellent telescope, with 

 which I could trace its motions when at the distance of a quarter of a 

 mile, and pursuing its avocations without apprehension of danger. In 

 this manner I have seen it probe the sand to the full length of its bill, 

 knock off limpets from the rocks on the coast of Labrador, using its wea- 

 pon sideways and insinuating it between the rock and the shell like a 

 chisel, seize the bodies of gaping oysters on what are called in the South- 

 ern States and the Floridas " Racoon oyster beds," and at other times 



