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CHARADRIID^. 
wise have reached. The cry is very peculiar, and, once heard, 
can never he forgotten. It is uttered both upon the wing and 
at rest, and is whimsically compared by the people to a shrill 
exclamation of ''My feet ! my feet !” This is usually the cry of 
alarm, but the single note " Hic-hic’' signifies suspicion, or warn- 
ing to a companion. However agreeable these cries may be at 
other times, they grate most unpleasantly upon the ear of the 
gunner; often when he has toiled patiently to approach, unper- 
ceived, a fine seal, for example, or a big sea-otter, his persever- 
ance is rewarded by its instantaneous disappearance beneath 
the waves, as the Oyster-catcher dashes overhead, shrieking 
forth his discovery of the whereabouts of the common enemy — 
a service too often followed by a mingled explosion of strong 
language and gunpowder, and the concluding spectacle of a 
confused mass of pied plumage and Vermillion bill lying among 
the dark weedy rocks at the water’s edge. In these islands 
its food mainly consists of limpets and mussels, together with 
many species of small univalves, which may be obtained in al- 
most all states of the tide ; but, so far as I can ascertain, it never 
feeds upon the oyster, even in those situations where the latter 
abounds. It is not easy to imagine how the limpets are pro- 
cured, although it is possible that experience may have taught 
the bird to strike them from the rock suddenly and without 
previously alarming them, and it is not at all unlikely that 
they are picked up while feeding in shallow water before they 
have time to retreat within the shell. By way of experiment, 
I have easily detached limpets from the rocks by means of the 
bill of a recently-killed Oyster-catcher, but this can only be 
done by a sudden blow, otherwise the shell will be closed down 
so firmly as to defy all further effort. The common song thrush, 
as is well known, often betrays its feeding-place by allowing 
the shells of snails upon which it feeds to accumulate in one 
particular spot, and the Oyster-catcher has the same habit. 
When a limpet is captured it is not always devoured immedi- 
ately, but is often carried to a suitable place, such as a flat 
rock or a grassy ledge, where the operation of unshelling it is 
