The Black Oyster-catcher 



of mammal depredations, as of seals hauling out. Whatever may have 

 induced the change in habit, it is certain that as often as the annual 

 reproductive cycle comes around, the Black Oyster-catcher is impelled 

 to provide for herself a hard bed, which in its essentials serves to recall 

 the harsh setting of the ancestral beach. Thus, on a single island we 

 have seen a beach nest, a nest which consisted of a quart of rounded 

 pebbles culled from the same beach but carried a hundred yards or so to 

 a bare rock twenty feet above tide, and a flake-nest consisting exclusively 

 of sandstone chips. Another nest in our collection, taken from a rocky 

 shoulder some ninety feet above tide, comprises only angular fragments 

 of sandstone. 



Needless to say, these Spartan cradles are not considerate of their 

 contents. Dented eggs are common in the nests, and many an unhatched 

 Hcematopus goes rolling over the steeps. But these chosen dangers are a 

 bagatelle in comparison with the depredations of the Raven. Little 

 escapes his sinister eye, and an egg once marked is doomed. Ravens 

 abound on the Santa Barbara Islands, and if it were not for them we should 

 have, perhaps, ten times our present population of Oyster-catchers. 



A young Oyster-catcher is a master at freezing, and his case is helped 

 somewhat by rusty feather-edgings, which enable him to blend with the 

 surroundings. When warned, he flattens to the rock with outstretched 

 neck and bill, and nothing but the parental permission or the hand of the 

 discoverer will absolve him from his fakir vow. That the appearance of 

 the fledgling is not devoid of interest is testified by L. M. Turner, who 

 says in his "Contributions to the Natural History of Alaska": "I once 

 procured a less than half-grown bird of this species, and if any one would 

 like to have one it can be gotten up in the following manner: Take the 

 hinder half of a black kitten, dip about four inches of its tail in red paint, 

 then fasten to the legs a piece of tallow candle about four inches long, 

 jab the wick end of the candle down hard on the floor to spread it out for 

 feet. Stand it up and heave a boot-jack at it to give the desired ani- 

 mation, and a good representation of a young Black Oyster-catcher will 

 be produced, for a more comical object than a toddling Oyster-catcher is 

 difficult to conceive." 



The name Oyster-catcher is, of course, a misnomer. Oysters are not 

 much given to sprinting anyway, and this bird is not at all interested in 

 their ambulatorial powers ; for he does not frequent sand-beaches, mud-flats, 

 or oyster-beds. Even when visiting the mainland shore, which is not often, 

 the bird confines its attention to the barnacle-covered rocks and high- 

 lying mussel-beds. Its food consists of marine worms and crustaceans of 

 various sorts, barnacles, limpets, and especially mussels. Its stout, 

 chisel-shaped beak enables it to force an entrance into the most refractory 



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