THE PIED OYSTER-CATCHER. 107 
culated. Yet the truth of these accounts is doubted by the 
inhabitant^ of Egg Harbor, and other parts of our coast, 
who positively assert, that it never haunts such places, but 
confines itself almost solely to the sands ; and this opinion 
I am inclined to believe correct, having myself uniformly 
found these birds on the smooth beach bordering the ocean, 
and on the higher, dry, and level sands, just beyond the 
reach of the summer tides. On this last situation, where 
the dry flats are thickly interspersed with drifted shells, I 
have repeatedly found their nests, between the middle and 
25th of May. The nest itself is a slight hollow in the 
sand, containing three eggs, somewhat less than those of a 
hen, and nearly of the same shape, of a bluish cream-colour, 
marked with large, roundish spots of black, and others of a 
fainter tint. In some, the ground cream-colour is destitute 
of the bluish tint, the blotches larger, and of a deep brown. 
The young are hatched about the 25th of May, and some- 
times earlier, having myself caught them running along the 
beach about that period. They are at first covered with 
down of a grayish colour, very much resembling that of the 
sand, and marked with a streak of brownish black on the 
back, rump, and neck, the breast being dusky, where, in 
the old ones, it is black. The bill is at that age slightly 
bent downwards at the tip, where, like most other young 
birds, it has a hard protuberance that assists them in break- 
ing the shell ; but in a few days afterwards this falls off. 
These run along the shore with great ease and swiftness. 
