The Black Oyster-catcher 
Left to themselves, the birds are no Quakers, and the antics of 
courtship are both noisy and amusing. A certain duet, especially, con¬ 
sists of a series of awkward bowings and bendings, in which the neck is 
stretched to the utmost and arched over stiffly into a pose as grotesque as 
one of Cruikshank’s drawings,—the whole to an accompaniment of 
amorous clucks and wails. 
The eggs of the 
Black Oyster-catcher, 
normally three in num¬ 
ber, are oftenest placed- 
in the hollow of a bare 
rock, lined with a pint 
or so of rock-flakes, lab¬ 
oriously gathered. 
In default, appar¬ 
ently, of suitable stone- 
chips, the bird will util¬ 
ize bits of shell, rounded 
pebbles, or, still more 
exceptionally, grass. The 
use of pebbles serves to 
connect, in thought at 
least, the chip-lined 
nests with those instan¬ 
ces, comparatively few 
in number, where the 
eggs are deposited upon 
unmodified beach grav¬ 
el. One who has seen 
the Oyster-catcher’s 
eggs lying in coarse grav¬ 
el, where to the protec¬ 
tive coloration, stone- 
gray with black spots 
and blotches, is added 
the almost perfect assim¬ 
ilation of form to that 
of rounded pebbles, cannot escape the conclusion that this is the typical, 
or ancestral, situation. That the Oyster-catchers now resort to the 
upper reaches of barren reefs, or to the exposed shoulders of the more 
ambitious rocks, may be due to intervening geological changes, resulting 
in a relative scarcity of suitable beaches; or it may be due to the increase 
Taken in Washington Photo by the Author 
YOUNG OYSTERCATCHER, HIDING 
1351 
