tllE CtYSi’ER-dATCHERS. 
183 
Over the sands, as the latter are left by the receding tide. 
They will also feed on the edge of the saltings along the 
margin of the tide. Some which I had in confinement for 
several years were pretty ornaments to the garden, but were 
always shy and never became tame, while their soft feet were 
soon cut about on the hard ground in frosty weather. When 
undisturbed, the males were rather fond of executing a kind of 
dance, with their wings expanded. Although this bird may 
not feed on oysters, as its name would imply, it devours 
whelks, limpets, and small marine animals and Crustacea, as 
well as leaves and shoots of marine plants. It does not eat 
the shell of the whelk, but scoops its animal out with its power- 
ful bill, and in pursuit of this kind of food the Oyster-catcher 
often frequents the rocks at low tide. I have seen numbers of 
them feeding and digging into the sand when the latter is 
quite dry, doubtless probing after some hidden mollusc, and 
the birds may always be observed from the railway as it skirts 
Morecambe Bay, as they often feed at no great distance from 
the line. 
Nest. — Mr. Seebohm writes : “ A peculiarity attached to the 
identification of the Oyster-catcher is the number of nests it 
forms and then deserts, ere making one to its liking. Frequently 
several empty nests are found near the one that is tenanted, as 
though the bird had tried several times before it had been 
suited. The nest is merely a little hollow amongst the rough 
shingle and broken shells, or in the sand, about six inches 
across and about one inch deep, and this is lined with little 
scraps of shells and small peblfies, generally more or less 
neatly and smoothly arranged. Sometimes the eggs are 
deposited in a little hollow amongst the drifted seaweed.” The 
eggs of this bird have been found in several extraordinary 
situations, as, for instance, in a field and on the trunk of a 
felled pine-tree. A nest in the British Museum was taken by 
Mr. Bidwell in the Scilly Islands. It is a somewhat deep 
depression in the peaty moss, and the three eggs lie side by 
side, with a number of cockle-shells, one or two of which are 
also strewn about outside.” 
Eggs. — Mr. Robert Read writes to me ; “ Like the Ringed 
Sand-Plover, the Oyster-catcher breeds freely along the shores 
