NESTING HABITS OF THE OYSTER-CATCHER. 9 



Jardin des Plantes and the Jardin d'Acclimatation. Among 

 the wild birds in the former were the tamest Wood-pigeons I 

 ever saw, with Swifts, Chaffinches, Jackdaws, Blackbirds, and 

 of course, House Sparrows. The beautiful grounds of the 

 latter yielded Wood-pigeons, Magpies, Blackbirds, Blackcaps, 

 Chaffinches, House Martins, and a Reed Warbler in song on a 

 little shrubberied island in one of the ponds. These wonderful 

 gardens, practically part of the Bois de Bologne, would doubt- 

 less afford a considerable list of wild birds ; for my part, I had 

 more than enough to do seeing the captive birds and animals. 

 Soon after leaving Paris, in the open agricultural district, I 

 saw some Crested Larks. But the marshes and poplars about 

 Amiens and Abbville, which I always long to explore for aqua- 

 tic species, only showed Rooks and the eternal Magpie. 



NESTING HABITS OF THE OYSTEE-CATCHEE, 

 HjEMATOPUS OSTBALEGUS. 



By F. B. Whitlock. 



For several seasons during the last few years I have visited 

 a part of the north of England coast where the Oyster-catcher is 

 a common breeding species. 



The district to which I refer consists of a stretch of sandy 

 and shingly beech of no great width, but of some seven or eight 

 miles in length, and flanked partly by rough pastures, and 

 partly by an extensive rabbit-warren. The pastures call for no 

 remark, but the warren is a most interesting district by reason 

 of its extensive range of sand-hills, which cover a large area, 

 and have been blown by the wind into most fantastic shapes, 

 Most of them are more or less thickly covered with a growth of 

 marram grass, especially those nearest the shore, others are 

 quite naked, but the intervening valleys are clothed with a thin 

 turf-like growth of vegetation on which the rabbits feed. In 

 some parts shingle banks take the place of these patches of 

 turf. For a distance of more than a mile the warren is divided 

 from the mainland by a broad estuary, and during high tides 

 the lower parts are liable to be flooded. 



