The Black Oyster-catcher 
looking very big and bold. Then he will draw his head in and settle his 
body lower on the legs and sneak off, glancing furtively over his shoulder 
to see if his movements are being shadowed. Without question he is 
trying to develop the kind and degree of our interest. If the female was 
sitting upon eggs she slipped away too soon to be caught at home, and 
she spends the entire time of our stay arranging elaborate pantomines for 
our misguidance. Now she bends with quivering wing and dips her 
head up and down, as though inviting attention to her charming nestlings. 
“Ar’n’t they darlings?” (She means a heap of mussel shells just before 
her eyes). Or again she settles down upon a barnacle-covered rock and 
broods virtuously—on barnacles. 
And if, by any accident, one does become possessed of the real secret, it 
is great sport to devise a stealthy return and to watch the bird steal away 
from the eggs, slowly, painfully, in abject humiliation, hoping against hope 
that she is eluding observation, until a safe distance is reached. When 
the game is ‘‘all off” the birds cause the rocks to resound with their 
strident cries, and if there are neighbors, these join forces with the im¬ 
mediately besieged ones until our ears ache. 
1350 
A HARD CRADLE 
NEST OF BLACK OYSTERCATCHER ON DESTRUCTION ISLAND 
Photo by the Author 
