PIED OYSTER-CATCHER. 
373 
rienced sportsman, who nevertheless was unacquainted with this bird. 
He informed me that two very old men to whom it was shown called 
it a Hagdel. He adds, " it was shot from a flock which was first dis- 
covered on the beach near the entrance of Boston harbor. On the 
approach of the gunner they rose and instantly formed in line, like a 
corps of troops, and advanced in perfect order, keeping well dressed. 
They marie a number of circuits in the air previous to being shot at, 
but wheeled in line ; and the man who fired into the flock, observed 
that all their evolutions were like a regularly organized military 
company." 
The Oyster-catcher will not only take to the water when wounded, 
but can also swim and dive well. This fact I can assert from my 
own observation, the exploits of one of them in this way having nearly 
cost me my life. On the sea beach of Cape May, not far from a deep 
and rapid inlet, I broke the wing of one of these birds, and being 
without a dog, instantly pursued it towards the inlet, which it made 
for with great rapidity. We both plunged in nearly at the same instant ; 
but the bird eluded my grasp, and I sunk beyond my depth ; it was 
not until this moment that I recollected having carried in my gun 
along with me. On rising to the surface I found the bird had 
dived, and a strong ebb current was carrying me fast towards the 
ocean, encumbered with a gun and all my shooting apparatus ; I was 
compelled to relinquish my bird, and to make for the shore, with con- 
siderable mortification, and the total destruction of the contents of 
my powderhorn. The wounded bird afterwards rose, and swam with 
great buoyancy out among the breakers. 
On the same day I shot and examined three individuals of this spe- 
cies, two of which measured each eighteen inches in length, and thirty- 
five inches in extent ; the other was somewhat less. The bills varied 
in length, measuring three inches and three-quarters, three and a half, 
and three and a quarter,- thinly compressed at the point, very much 
like that of the Woodpecker tribe, but remarkably narrowed near the 
base where the nostrils are placed, probably that it may work with more 
freedom in the sand. This instrument for two-thirds of its length 
towards the point, was evidently much worn by digging ; its color a 
rich orange scarlet, somewhat yellowish near the tip ; eye large, orbits 
of the same bright scarlet as the bill, irides brilliant yellow, pupil small, 
bluish black ; under the eye is a small spot of white, and a large bed of 
the same on the wing coverts ; head, neck, scapulars, rump, wing quills, 
and tail black ; several of the primaries are marked on the outer vanes 
with a slanting band of white ; secondaries white, part of them tipped 
with black ; the whole lower parts of the body, sides of the rump, tail 
coverts, and that portion of the tail which they cover, are pure white ; 
the wings, when shut, cover the whole white plumage of the back and 
