HiEMATOPODIDJE — THE OYSTER CATCHERS — HiEMATOPUS. 
115 
watchful and stately manner, from time to time probing the ground with its bill in 
search of food. The hard sand to which it resorts was found thickly perforated with 
oblong holes two or three inches in depth. The fiddler-crab, as well as mussels, sport- 
fish, and a variety of other shell-fish and sea-insects, with which those shores abound, 
were its principal food. The inhabitants of Egg Harbor and those of other parts of 
the coast did not credit its alleged feeding upon oysters, stating that it is never seen 
in their neighborhood, but confines itself solely to the sands ; and this statement 
Wilson confirms, stating that he has uniformly found it on the smooth beach border- 
ing the ocean; and on the higher dry and level sands, just beyond the reach of tides, 
and at points where the dry flats are thickly interspersed with drifted shells, he 
usually found its nests between the middle and the 25th of May. The nest is said 
to be merely a slight hollow in the sand, and usually contains three eggs, which, when 
fresh, have a bluish cream-colored ground, marked with large roundish spots of black, 
and others of a fainter tint. In some eggs this blue tint was wanting, and in these 
the blotches were larger and of a deep brown. The young were hatched about the 
25th of May, and sometimes earlier ; Wilson himself found them running about the 
beach at that period. When I visited the sandy islands off Cape Charles in June, 
1852, there were no young birds found, and all the eggs of this species were fresh — a 
condition probably owing to the fact that their eggs had been previously taken, and 
no opportunity afforded for their hatching at an earlier period. The young birds are 
described by Wilson as being at first covered with down of a grayish color, resembling 
that of the sand, and marked with a streak of blackish brown on the neck, back, and 
rump, the breast being dusky where in the old birds it is black. Their bills are 
slightly bent at the tip, and have a hard protuberance, which falls off in a few days 
after they are hatched. They run along the shore with great ease and swiftness. 
The female sits on her eggs only during the night or during cold and rainy weather, 
the heat of the sun and of the sand at other times rendering her presence unneces- 
sary ; but she is said to watch the spot with anxiety and fidelity. The young follow 
the mother from the shell, squat on the sand — from which they are with difficulty 
distinguished — whenever there is any danger, while both parents make large circuits 
around the intruder, uttering repeated cries, and practising the common stratagem of 
counterfeited lameness. Their note is said to be a loud and shrill whistling, like 
wheep-wheep-whed sharply uttered. A flock of these birds will often rise, descend, 
and wheel in air with remarkable regularity, as if drilled to the practice ; at such 
times the glittering white of their wings is very conspicuous. This peculiarity is 
also mentioned by Jardine as having been noticed by him in the European ostralegus. 
The stomachs of the birds opened by Wilson contained fragments of shell-fish, 
pieces of crabs and of the great king-crab, with some dark brown marine insects. 
Audubon claims to have met with this species in Labrador, and states that he 
there found several breeding in the month of July. He afterward adds that he saw 
this bird farther inland in Labrador than in any other part of the country. I am 
only able to reconcile this statement with the remarkable rarity of this species from 
Montauk Point to Grand Menan, and with the singular fact that we have no mention 
by any other author of its appearance on that coast, by supposing that Mr. Audubon 
was misinformed, or in some way misled in regard to its occurrence farther north. 
The eggs of this species vary in length from 2.25 to 2.45 inches, and in breadth 
from 1.65 to 1.70 inches. Their ground-color is a fawn-colored white, and their 
markings are of bistre ; these are partly rounded spots, and partly irregular confluent 
blotches, lines, and oblong dashes. The dark-bistre is occasionally washed with the 
fawn-color of the ground, giving to these markings a diluted, neutral appearance. 
