16 



PIED OYSTER-CATCHER. 



shells, whenever it surprises them sufficiently open. In search of 

 these it is reported that it often frequents the oyster beds, look- 

 ing out for the slightest opening through which it may attack its 

 unwary prey. For this purpose the form of its bill seems very 

 fitly calculated. Yet the truth of these accounts are doubted by the 

 inhabitants of Egg Harbour and other parts of our coast, who po- 

 sitively assert that it never haunts such places, but confines itself 

 almost solely to the sands. And this opinion I am inclined to be- 

 lieve correct ; having myself uniformly found these birds on the 

 smooth beach bordering the ocean, and on the higher dry and level 

 sands, just beyond the reach of the summer tides. On this last 

 situation, where the dry flats are thickly interspersed with drifted 

 shells, I have repeatedly found their nests, between the middle 

 and twenty-fifth of May. The nest itself is a slight hollow in the 

 sand, containing three eggs, somewhat less than those of a hen, 

 and nearly of the same shape, of a bluish cream color, marked 

 with large roundish spots of black, and others of a fainter tint. In 

 some the ground cream color is destitute of the bluish tint, the 

 blotches larger and of a deep brown. The young are hatched 

 about the twenty-fifth of May, and sometimes earlier, having my- 

 self caught them running along the beach about that period. They 

 are at first covered with down of a greyish color, very much re- 

 sembling that of the sand, and marked with a streak of brownish 

 black on the back, rump and neck, the breast being dusky, where 

 in the old ones it is black. The bill is at that age slightly bent 

 downwards at the tip, where, like most other young birds, it has a 

 hard protuberance that assists them in breaking the shell ,^ but in 

 a few days afterwards this falls off.* These run along the shore 

 with great ease and swiftness. 



* Latham observes, that the young are said to be hatched in about tliree weeks ; and though 

 they are wihl when in flocks, yet are easily brought up tame if taken young. " I have known them," 

 says he, « to be thus kept for a long time, frequenting the ponds and ditches during the day, attending 

 the ducks and other poultry to shelter of nights, and not unfrequently to come up of themselves as 

 evening approaches. Gm. Synop, vol. iii, p. 220. 



