Bulletin - United States National Museum - si-pddr - Smithsonian ...

144 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
conspicuous, that they have suffered extensively at the hands of gunners.
On December 15 nearly 100 were noted in a close flock in an
indentation on the shore of Lake Epiquen near Carhue, Buenos
Aires. On the following day a few pairs seen on partly inundated
land on the lake shore seemed to be on their breeding grounds and
may have had eggs or young as they ran about with rapidly waving
wings and scolding calls. A few were recorded here on December
17 and 18. Near Guamini, in this same region, stilts were common
from March 3 to 8 in close flocks or scattered bands that fed in
shallow pools or bays. These flocks consisted of young and old
that apparently had banded together in preparation for migration.
Adults were still somewhat anxious about their young, though the
latter were fully grown, and scolded sharply with barking calls that
were answered by the whistled notes of their offspring. A pair of
adults taken were molting the primaries. The birds are similar in
appearance and carriage to the black-necked stilt {Himantojni^H mexicanus).
They walk about slowly in mud or shallow water with
heads bent in search for food, seldom wading where the water is
deep in spite of their extraordinary length of leg. Though ordi-
narily inoffensive, they sometimes drive the young about after the
latter are fully grown, or may fly at them and force them to lie
prostrate to avoid being struck.
A male in first year plumage with gray crown and brownish gray
back, taken September 6, had the bill black; iris orange chrome;
tarsus and toes flesh pink, washed with pale quaker drab at joints.
In a small series there is no difference apparent in birds from
Chile, Peru, Paraguay, and Argentina.
Family HAEMATOPODIDAE
HAEMATOPUS PALLIATUS Tcmminck
Haematopus palliatus Temminck, Man. Orn., ed. 2, vol. 2, 1820, p. 532.
(South America.)
Although on the morning of June 16, 1920, as the steamer came
in toward the wharf in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, seven oyster
catchers circled past barely above the low waves, I did not have
opportunity to observe and watch these birds further until I reached
the coast of the Province of Buenos Aires in late October. Two
were seen on the mud banks at the mouth of the Rio Ajo below La-
valle on October 25, and from November 3 to 7 they were fairly
common on the broad sand beach that extends southward for many
miles below Cape San Antonio. Here oyster catchers in pairs fed
in the shallow sweep of the surf, often where waves of more momentum
than usual came nearly to their bodies. The birds walked
slowly, with necks drawn in and heads inclined forward, seldom