OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 179 



the rocks, are wrenched off with ease. The Oystercatcher is 

 much attached to its mate, and I have seen it fly round and 

 round above a fallen comrade in a very touching manner. The 

 flight of this bird is rapid and powerful, full of impetuous dash, 

 performed by quick and regular strokes of the long wings, but 

 sometimes before alighting the bird skims along for a few yards 

 on stiff and motionless pinions. Its actions in the air are often 

 very erratic, the flight being full of sudden turns and twists. The 

 note of the Oystercatcher is very characteristic, and cannot 

 readily be confused with that of any other species on the coast. 

 It is a loud, shrill heep-heep-heep, usually uttered by the bird 

 during flight, often as it rises in haste from the beach, and 

 alarming all other fowl within hearing. I have often had a long, 

 patient stalk after Curlew spoiled, just when success seemed 

 certain, by the warning pipe of the Oystercatcher. The food of 

 this bird is princially composed of mussels, whelks, limpets, 

 annelids, crustaceans, and small fish, but the tender buds and 

 shoots of various marine plants are also eaten. Its flesh, as I 

 myself can testify, is not at all unpalatable, especially to a hungry 

 sportsman amidst the wilds of the Outer Hebrides. 



Nidification. — The flocks of Oystercatchers begin to disband 

 in March, early in April the birds are paired, and by the beginning 

 of May eggs may be found, although laying does not become 

 general until towards the end of that month or early in June. Its 

 breeding places are the shingly beaches, low islands, and rock- 

 stacks. The nest, when on the beach, is just above high-water 

 mark, often in the line of drifted rubbish cast up by unusually 

 high tides. Several nests are often made by the bird before 

 it is satisfied, and I have seen as many as half-a-dozen of 

 these mock nests within a few yards of the one that contained 

 the eggs. The nest scarcely deserves the name, as it is only 

 a little hollow in the shingle, in which the small pebbles and 

 bits of broken shells are smoothed into a bed for the eggs. 

 Sometimes these are deposited on a heap of drifted, dry sea- 

 weed. Various curious sites have been recorded ; the eggs 

 have been found in a deserted nest of a Herring Gull, in a 

 meadow far from the sea, and in a cavity at the top of a 

 felled pine-tree. I have seen them on the top of rock-stacks 



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