i8o GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



fifty feet above the water, and also amongst boulders in a little 

 bay in the cliffs, which could only be reached with a boat. The 

 eggs are usually three in number, sometimes four, and frequently 

 only two. They are pale buff in ground colour, blotched, 

 spotted, and streaked with blackish brown, and with underlying 

 markings of gray. They measure on an average 2*2 inches in 

 length by I'S inch in breadth. Both parents attend the young, 

 but the female incubates the eggs, the period being from twenty- 

 three to twenty-four days. Only one brood is reared in the 

 season, but if the first eggs are taken another clutch will be laid. 

 The male gives warning to the female of the approach of danger, 

 and she leaves her eggs at once to the safety ensured by their 

 protective colour. The old birds become very noisy when their 

 breeding grounds are invaded, especially if the young are hatched, 

 and no one who has not heard a dozen or more Oystercatchers 

 screaming together overhead can have even a faint conception of 

 the din these birds can make. The broods and their parents 

 seem to keep much together through the autumn and winter. 



Diagnostic Characters. — Hamatopus, with the lower back, 

 rump, and upper tail coverts white, and the white pattern on the 

 primaries well developed on the outer webs of the fourth and 

 fifth. Length, 16 to 17 inches. 



