white within : the lower part of the back, rump, breaft, and under
parts, are white: tail white half way from the bafe, the end
half black : legs dirty red : claws black.
Birds have been feen with the end half of the bill black; and
in others the white under the eye-lid and chin are both wanting:
the laft is alfo not unfrequently met with white, mottled with
black.'
The Oifler-catcher is pretty common in England; moft fo on
the weftern Ihores ; feeding on Jhell-fiJh, and in particular oijlers
and limpets. On obferving any one of the firft, which gapes wide
enough for the infertion of its bill, it thrufts it in, and takes out
the inhabitant: it will alfo force the limpets from their adhe-
fion to the rocks with fufficient eafe. In turn feeds on marine
infells and worms. In winter we often fee thefe birds in confi-
derable flocks; but they do not depart from us. In the fummer
are met with only in pairs, though chiefly in the neighbourhood
of the fea orfait rivers. The female lays four or five eggs, on the
bare ground, on the lhore, above high-water mark : they are of a
greenilh grey, blotched with black. The young are faid to be
hatched in about three weeks. Thefe birds are pretty wild
when in flocks, yet are eafily brought up tame, if taken young t
1 have known them to be thus kept for a long time, frequenting
the ponds and ditches during the day, attending the ducks and
other poultry to lhelter of nights, and not unfrequently to come
up of themfelves as the evening approaches. Are known in fome
parts of England by the name of Sea-Pie, or Olive-.
This fpecies feems a general inhabitant; being found in moft
parts of the old continent, and univerfally in the neighbourhood
of the Tea. It is alfo fufficiently plenty throughout America^
from.
from New-Tork to the Bahama Pfands *, as well as Cayenne and
Surinam f . Dampier met with it on the coafl: of New Holland J,
and Kampfer at Japan § ; our late circumnavigators, at Van Diemen’s
Land, Terra del Fuego ||, and New Zealand ** : but in the
laft-named places, as well as in fome others-fT, the plumage is
wholly black.
* Ar£i. Zool.— Cateß. Car. I . 85.— Park. Voy. p. 144.
+ Dtfcrip. Surin. ii. p. 167. J Voy. iii. p’ . in 123.— Cook’s laß Voy. i. 110.
§ Kamp. Jap. i. p. 1 13. ]| Forß. Voy. i. p. 453.— Park. Voy. p. 488.
#* Haaukefw. Voy. ii. p. 333.— Cook’s laß Voy. i. p. 151.— Id. ii. p. 378.
4 j* In the iiland ofCurayoa.— Feuill. Obf. 1725. p.. 89..
G enus