PIED OYSTER-CATCHER. 
175 
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 ra- 
pidity. 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 appa- 
ratus; I was compelled to relinquish my bird, and to make for 
the shore, with considerable mortification, and the total destruc- 
tion 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 species, 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 colour a 
rich orange scarlet, somewhat yellowish near the tip; eye large, 
orbits of the same bright scarlet as the bill, irides brilliant yel- 
low, 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 tipt with black; 
the whole lower parts of the body, sides of the rump, tail co- 
