THE AMERICAN OYSTER-CATCHER. 237 



States, where, as well as in North Carolina, it breeds. It seems scarcer 

 between Long; Island and Portland in Maine, where you again see it, and 

 whence it occurs all the way to Labrador, in which country I found that 

 several were breeding in the month of July. Unless in winter, when these 

 birds assemble in parties of twenty-five or thirty individuals, they are 

 seldom met with in greater numbers than from one to four pairs, with their 

 families, which appear to remain with the parent birds until the following 

 spring. It is never found inland, nor even far up our largest rivers, but is 

 fond of remaining at all times on the sandy beaches and rocky shores of our 

 salt-water bays or marshes. In Labrador, I met with it farther from the 

 open sea than in an} 7 other part, yet always near salt-water. 



Shy, vigilant, and ever on the alert, the Oyster-catcher walks with a 

 certain appearance of dignity, greatly enhanced by its handsome plumage 

 and remarkable bill. If you stop to watch it, that instant it sounds a loud 

 shrill note of alarm; and should you advance farther towards it, when it has 

 neither nest nor young, off it flies quite out of sight. Few birds, indeed, 

 are more difficult to be approached, and the only means of studying its 

 habits I found to be the use of an excellent telescope, with which I could 

 trace its motions when at the distance of a quarter of a mile, and pursuing 

 its avocations without apprehension of danger. In this manner I have seen 

 it probe the sand to the full length of its bill, knock off limpets from the 

 rocks on the coast of Labrador, using its weapon sideways and insinuating 

 it between the rock and the shell like a chisel, seize the bodies of gaping 

 oysters on what are called in the Southern States and the Floridas "Racoon 

 oyster-beds," and at other times take up a "razor-handle" or solen, and 

 lash it against the sands until the shell was broken and the contents swallow- 

 ed. Now and then they seem to suck the sea-urchins, driving in the mouth, 

 and introducing their bill by the aperture, without breaking the shell; again 

 they are seen wading up to their bodies from one place to another, seizing 

 on shrimps and other Crustacea, and even swimming for a few yards, should 

 this be necessary to enable them to remove from one bank to another with- 

 out flying. Small crabs, fiddlers, and sea-worms are also caught by it, the^ 

 shells of which, in a broken state, I have found in its gizzard in greater or less 

 quantity. Frequently, while on wet sea-beaches, it pats the sand, to force 

 out the insects; and in one instance I saw an individual run from the water 

 to the dry sand, with a small flounder in its bill, which it afterwards 

 devoured. 



This bird forms no regular nest, but is contented with scratching the dry 

 sand above high-water mark, so as to form a slight hollow, in which it 

 deposits its eggs. On the coast of Labrador, and in the Bay of Fundy, it 

 lays its eggs on the bare rock. When the eggs are on sand, it seldom sits 



Vol. V. 33 



