Volume Ii Part 34 (1/2)

(AMERICAN OYSTER-CATCHER.)

+Haematopus palliatus+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 143; _Durnford, Ibis_, 1878, p. 403 (Centr. Patagonia); _Seebohm, Plovers_, p.

305; _Baird, Brew., et Ridgw. Water-B. N. A._ i. p. 112.

_Description._--Head and neck all round black; back and wing-coverts brown; upper tail-coverts, greater wing-coverts, and abdomen white; bill and feet orange: whole length 170 inches, wing 95, tail 35.

_Female_ similar.

_Hab._ America.

This Oyster-catcher is widely distributed along the coasts of North and South America, from Nova Scotia to Patagonia. Durnford found it nesting near Tombo Point in Central Patagonia in the month of December, but failed to obtain the eggs.

At the same place Durnford also observed the Black Oyster-catcher (_H.

ater_), but that is an Antarctic species, which may probably not come further north.

Fam. XLVIII. THINOCORIDae, or SEED-SNIPES.

The family Thinocoridae, which embraces the two genera _Thinocorus_ and _Attagis_, is a peculiar group of South-American birds of somewhat Partridge-like appearance, and a.s.sociated by the older authors with the Gallinae, but now known to be most nearly allied in essential structure to the Plovers. The Seed-Snipes are inhabitants of bare and desolate districts, being found in the northern parts of the continent only on the high Andes, but descending to the sea-level in Patagonia and the Falkland Islands. The species are few in number, only about six being known, of which two occur within Argentine limits.

393. THINOCORUS RUMICIVORUS, Eschsch.

(COMMON SEED-SNIPE.)

+Thinocorus rumicivorus+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 501 (Rosario); _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 144; _iid. P. Z. S._ 1868, p. 143 (Buenos Ayres); _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 42 (Chupat) et p. 197 (Buenos Ayres), et 1878, p. 403 (Centr. Patagonia); _Tacz. Orn.

Per._ iii. p. 283.

_Description._--Above buffy brown, marbled and irregularly banded with black; wing-feathers black, edged with white, external secondaries like the back; tail black, broadly tipped with white, central rectrices like the back: beneath white; a broad line on each side of the throat uniting in the centre of the neck and expanding into a collar on the breast black; sides of neck greyish; bill dark brown; feet yellow; claws black: whole length 65 inches, wing 39, tail 19. _Female_: above like the male: beneath white, sides of neck and breast brown varied with blackish, with slight traces only of the black bar.

_Hab._ Western Peru, Bolivia, Chili, Patagonia, and Argentina.

This curious bird has the grey upper plumage and narrow, long, sharply-pointed wings of a Snipe, with the plump body and short strong curved beak of a Partridge. But the gallinaceous beak is not in this species correlated, as in the Partridges, with stout rasorial feet; on the contrary, the legs and feet are extremely small and feeble, and scarcely able to sustain the weight of the body. When alighting the Seed-Snipe drops its body directly upon the ground and sits close like a Goatsucker; when rising it rushes suddenly away with the wild hurried flight and sharp sc.r.a.ping alarm-cry of a Snipe. It is exclusively a vegetable-feeder. I have opened the gizzards of many scores to satisfy myself that they never eat insects, and have found nothing in them but seed (usually clover-seed) and tender buds and leaves mixed with minute particles of gravel.

These birds inhabit Patagonia, migrating north to the pampas in winter, where they arrive in April. They usually go in flocks of about forty or fifty individuals, and fly rapidly, keeping very close together. On the ground, however, they are always much scattered, and are so reluctant to rise that they will allow a person to walk or ride through the flock without taking wing, each bird creeping into a little hollow in the surface or behind a tuft of gra.s.s to escape observation. During its winter sojourn on the pampas the flock always selects as a feeding-ground a patch of whitish argillaceous earth, with a scanty withered vegetation; and here when the birds crouch motionless on the ground, to which their grey plumage so closely a.s.similates in colour, it is most difficult to detect them. If a person stands still close to or in the midst of the flock the birds will presently betray their presence by answering each other with a variety of strange notes, resembling the cooing of Pigeons, loud taps on a hollow ground, and other mysterious sounds, which seem to come from beneath the earth.

In the valley of Rio Negro I met with a few of these birds in summer, but could not find their nests.

Durnford, however, who found them breeding in Chupat at the end of October, tells us that the nest is a slight depression in the ground, sometimes lined with a few blades of gra.s.s. ”The eggs have a pale stone ground-colour, very thickly but finely speckled with light and dark chocolate markings; they have a polished appearance, and measure 13 8 inch” (Ibis, 1878, p. 403).

394. THINOCORUs...o...b..GNYa.n.u.s, Geoffr. et Less.

(D'ORBIGNY'S SEED-SNIPE.)

+Thinocorus...o...b..gnya.n.u.s+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 500; _Scl.

et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 144; _Tacz. Orn. Per._ iii. p. 281.