The Black Oyster-catcher 
of mammal depredations, as of seals hauling out. Whatever may have 
induced the change in habit, it is certain that as often as the annual 
reproductive cycle comes around, the Black Oyster-catcher is impelled 
to provide for herself a hard bed, which in its essentials serves to recall 
the harsh setting of the ancestral beach. Thus, on a single island we 
have seen a beach nest, a nest which consisted of a quart of rounded 
pebbles culled from the same beach but carried a hundred yards or so to 
a bare rock twenty feet above tide, and a flake-nest consisting exclusively 
of sandstone chips. Another nest in our collection, taken from a rocky 
shoulder some ninety feet above tide, comprises only angular fragments 
of sandstone. 
Needless to say, these Spartan cradles are not considerate of their 
contents. Dented eggs are common in the nests, and many an unhatched 
Ilcematopus goes rolling over the steeps. But these chosen dangers are a 
bagatelle in comparison with the depredations of the Raven. Little 
escapes his sinister eye, and an egg once marked is doomed. Ravens 
abound on the Santa Barbara Islands, and if it were not for them we should 
have, perhaps, ten times our present population of Oyster-catchers. 
A young Oyster-catcher is a master at freezing, and his case is helped 
somewhat by rusty feather-edgings, which enable him to blend with the 
surroundings. When warned, he flattens to the rock with outstretched 
neck and bill, and nothing but the parental permission or the hand of the 
discoverer will absolve him from his fakir vow. That the appearance of 
the fledgling is not devoid of interest is testified by L. M. Turner, who 
says in his “Contributions to the Natural History of Alaska’’: “I once 
procured a less than half-grown bird of this species, and if any one would 
like to have one it can be gotten up in the following manner: Take the 
hinder half of a black kitten, dip about four inches of its tail in red paint, 
then fasten to the legs a piece of tallow candle about four inches long, 
jab the wick end of the candle down hard on the floor to spread it out for 
feet. Stand it up and heave a boot-jack at it to give the desired ani¬ 
mation, and a good representation of a young Black Oyster-catcher will 
be produced, for a more comical object than a toddling Oyster-catcher is 
difficult to conceive.” 
The name Oyster-catcher is, of course, a misnomer. Oysters are not 
much given to sprinting anyway, and this bird is not at all interested in 
their ambulatorial powers; for he does not frequent sand-beaches, mud-flats, 
or oyster-beds. Even when visiting the mainland shore, which is not often, 
the bird confines its attention to the barnacle-covered rocks and high- 
lying mussel-beds. Its food consists of marine worms and crustaceans of 
various sorts, barnacles, limpets, and especially mussels. Its stout, 
chisel-shaped beak enables it to force an entrance into the most refractory 
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