THE AMERICAN OYSTER-CATCHER. 
237 
States, where, as well as in North Carolina, it breeds. It seems scarcer 
between Long Island and Portland in Maine, where you again see it, and 
whence it occurs all the way to Labrador, in which country I found that 
several were breeding in the month of July. Unless in winter, when these 
birds assemble in parties of twenty-five or thirty individuals, they are 
seldom met with in greater numbers than from one to four pairs, with their 
families, which appear to remain with the parent birds until the following 
spring. It is never found inland, nor even far up our largest rivers, but 
is fond of remaining at all times on the sandy beaches and rocky shores of 
our salt-water bays or marshes. In Labrador, I met with it farther from 
the open sea than in any other part, yet always near salt-water. 
Shy, vigilant, and ever on the alert, the Oyster-catcher walks with a 
certain appearance of dignity, greatly enhanced by its handsome plumage 
and remarkable bill. If you stop to watch it, that instant it sounds a loud 
shrill note of alarm; and should you advance farther towards it, when it has 
neither nest nor young, off it flies quite out of sight. Few birds, indeed, 
are more difficult to be approached, and the only means of studying its 
habits I found to be the use of an excellent telescope, with which I could 
trace its motions when at the distance of a quarter of a mile, and pursuing 
its avocations without apprehension of danger. In this manner I have seen 
it probe the sand to the full length of its bill, knock off limpets from the 
rocks on the coast of Labrador, using its weapon sideways and insinuating 
it between the rock and the shell like a chisel, seize the bodies of gaping 
oysters on what are called in the Southern States and the Floridas “ Racoon 
oyster-beds,” and at other times take up a “ razor-handle” or solen, and 
lash it against the sands until the shell was broken and the contents swallow- 
ed. Now and then they seem to suck the sea-urchins, driving in the mouth, 
and introducing their bill by the aperture, without breaking the shell; again 
they are seen wading up to their bodies from one place to another, seizing 
on shrimps and other Crustacea, and even swimming for a few yards, should 
this be necessary to enable them to remove from one bank to another with- 
out flying. Small crabs, fiddlers, and sea-worms are also caught by it, the 
shells of which, in a broken state, I have found in its gizzard in greater or 
less quantity. Frequently, while on wet sea-beaches, it pats the sand, to 
force out the insects ; and in one instance I saw an individual run from the 
water to the dry sand, with a small flounder in its bill, which it afterwards 
devoured. 
This bird forms no regular nest, but is contented with scratching the dry 
sand above high-water mark, so as to form a slight hollow, in which it 
deposits its eggs. On the coast of Labrador, and in the Bay of Fundy, it 
lays its eggs on the bare rock. When the eggs are on sand, it seldom sits 
Vol. V. 33 
