THE OYSTER-CATCHER. 
l8l 
I. THE OYSTER-CATCHER. H.T;MAT0PUS OSTRALEGUS. 
Hcemalopus ostrakgus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 257 (1766) j 
Macgill. Brit. B. iv. p. 152 (1852); Dresser, B. Eur. 
vii. p. 567, pi. 533 (1877); B. O. U. List Brit. B. p. 162 
(1883) ; Saunders, ed. Yarrell’s Brit. B. 111. p. 294 (1883) ; 
Secbohm, Hist, Brit. B. iii. p. 4 (1885); Saunders, Man. 
Brit. B. p. 543 (1889) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part 
xii. (1890) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 107 
(1896). 
(Plate LXXXI.) 
Adult Male. — General colour above glossy black ; lower back, 
rump, and upper tail-coverts white ; wing-coverts black, the 
bastard-tving feathers and the median series with white tips, 
the greater coverts pure white, with only a little blackish 
concealed near the base; primaries black, with the greater 
part of the inner web white, except near the ends and for some 
distance parallel to the shaft, the latter with a sub-terminal 
white streak, widening into a broad white streak on the inner 
primaries, the white extending on to the outer web ; second- 
aries pure white with black tips, the central ones white, the 
long inner ones black; tail white, with the terminal third 
black, forming a broad band ; head all round with the entire 
throat black ; under the eye a white spot ; remainder of under 
surface of body, from the lower throat downwards, pure white ; 
the feathers of the fore-neck which adjoin the black throat 
being half white and half black, to correspond with the 
adjacent plumage; under wing-coverts and axillaries white; 
bill vermilion, tinged with yellow as far as the end of the 
nasal groove, the attenuated part dull yellow ; feet pale lake or 
purplish-red; edges of the eyelids vermilion; ins crimson. 
Total length, 16 inches; culmen, 2-9; wing, 7-9; tail, 3-9; 
tarsus, 1-95. 
Adult Temale Similar to the male in plumage. Total length, 
17 inches; culmen, 3-3 ; wing, lo’i ; tail, 4; tarsus, 2. 
Young. — Browner on the back than the adults, and with 
more or less sandy-brown vermiculations and margins to the 
ends of the feathers ; across the middle of the throat a broad 
band of white ; quills with a larger expanse of white, the white 
on the outer web of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth quills 
