278 
NESTS AND EGGS OF 
accomplish the difficult task. Do but watch their movements, in imagina- 
tion, as the author unfolds to you what he has repeatedly observed. You 
station yourself upon the beach, out of gunshot reach, and await your 
opportunity. If you have been so fortunate as to select a well-known 
resort, and are in season, you may not have long to watch. But patience 
is sometimes necessary. If you have not this virtue, you must cultivate it. 
But we will suppose that you have hit upon an opportune moment, — the 
hour when the birds have returned from the bath, or from a long aerial 
excursion of pleasure, tired and hungry. Their voices are heard in the 
distance. Your attention is awakened. You look up, and dimly perceive 
the moving objects. A few seconds expire, and if you are acquainted with 
the species, the glittering white of their wings, which show conspicuously, 
and orange-red bills and feet, tell you at once they are the Oystercatchers. 
But keep perfectly still, or you might affright them. They see you — an 
apparently motionless mass of flesh and spirit — and little daunting, pass 
over your head, and settle some thirty paces away, which is just what you 
hoped for. Had you perceptibly stirred, you might have been denied the 
privilege which you now are supposed to enjoy. Do you perceive the 
stately, deliberate gait, the sideward glance, the statue-like repose? We 
know you do, and might have saved ourselves the question. But you 
must not grow impatient, but watch and wait with philosophic coolness 
for newer revelations. Convinced that nothing is to be feared from you, 
all heads are at once lowered, and the long, wedge-shaped bills thrust 
deep down into the moist, yielding sand in search of shell-fish. You 
repair to the spot, for your curiosity is on tij)-toe, and find the ground 
thickly perforated with oblong holes, some two or three inches in depth. 
Further investigations will assure you that these holes are not made for 
any particular species of molluscs, but for other forms of life as well. 
Tired of the beach, these birds love to burrow in mud-bottomed inlets for 
the small crabs called fiddlers, which frequent such places. The immense 
numbers of these, together with mussels, solens, limpets, nereids and marine 
insects which they daily devour, afford them a dainty, splendid and 
luxurious living. Some writers assert that they visit the oyster beds for 
