266 WEB-FOOTED BIRDS. 



They keep also among the sheltered inlets which intervene 

 between the main land and the sea, where they roam about 

 in companies of 8 or 10 together, passing and repassing at 

 the flood tide, like so many grotesque and gigantic swal- 

 lows, the estuaries of the creeks and inlets which penetrate 

 into the salt marshes, exhibiting the necessary alertness in 

 the capture of their approaching prey, which often consists 

 of small crabs, and the more minute crustaceous animals, 

 which abound in such situations, and around the masses of 

 floating sea-weeds and wreck. But though so exclusively 

 maritime, the range of the Cut-water is entirely limited to the 

 peaceful and calm borders of the strand ; notwithstanding 

 the vast expansion of their long wings, they have no induce- 

 ment to follow the adventurous flight of the Petrel, as the 

 ever agitated and wave-tossed surface of the restless deep, 

 would be to them, with the peculiar mechanism of their bill, 

 a barren void, over which they consequently never roam, 

 and on whose bosom they rarely ever rest, preferring with 

 the Terns, when satisfied with food, the calm, indolent, 

 and surer repose of the insolated shoal left bare by the recess 

 of the tide, where associated in flocks they are often seen to 

 rest from their toilsome and precarious employ. 



The Skimmer is about 19 inches in length, the closed wings ex- 

 tend beyond the tail 4 inches : alar stretch 44 inches ! Length of 

 the lower mandible 4^ inches ; of the upper 3^, both red, tinged with 

 orange, and tipt with black. Upper part of the head, neck, back and 

 scapulars, black ; wings the same, except the secondaries which are 

 white on their inner vanes, and also tipt with white. Tail forked, 

 the two middle feathers about an inch and a half shorter than the 

 exterior ones, all black, broadly edged on either side with white : 

 tail coverts white on the outer sides, black in the middle. — Front, pass- 

 ing down the neck below the eye, throat, breast, and whole lower 

 parts, white. Legs and webbed feet, red lead color. — The female only 

 16 inches long, and 39 in alar stretch ; similar with the male in plu- 

 mage, except in the tail which is white, shafted, and broadly center- 

 ed with black. 



