<hw>Oyster-catcher</hw>, <i>n</i>. common English bird-name. The Australasian species are—Pied, <i>Haematopus longirostris</i>, Vieill.; Black, <i>H. unicolor</i>, Wagler; and two other species—<i>H. picatus</i>, Vigors, and <i>H. australasianus</i>, Gould, with no vernacular name.
1846. J. L. Stokes, `Discoveries in Australia,' vol. ii. c. vii. p. 174:
"Our game-bag was thinly lined with small curlews, oyster-catchers, and sanderlings."
1872. A. Domett, `Ranolf,' p. 274:
"Slim oyster-catcher, avocet,
And tripping beach-birds, seldom met
Elsewhere."
P
<hw>Pa</hw>, or <hw>Pah</hw>, <i>n</i>. The former is now considered the more correct spelling. A Maori word to signify a native settlement, surrounded by a stockade; a fort; a fighting village. In Maori, the verb <i>pa</i> means, to touch, to block up. <i>Pa</i> = a collection of houses to which access is blocked by means of stockades and ditches.
1769. `Captain Cook's Journal' (edition Wharton, 1893), p. 147:
"I rather think they are places of retreat or stronghold, where they defend themselves against the attack of an enemy, as some of them seemed not ill-design'd for that purpose."
Ibid. p. 156: