560 PALMIPEDES. 



discovered. Its favourite haunts are low sand-bars, 

 i-aised above the reacli of the summer tides, and also dry- 

 Hat sands on the beach in front of the ocean. The re- 

 markal>le conformation of the scissor-like bill has excited 

 much surprise, and some writers, measuring the divine 

 pi'oportions of nature by their own contracted standards 

 of conception, in the plenitude of their vanity have 

 pronounced it to be 'a lame defective weapon.' Such 

 ignorant presumption, or rather impiety, ought to hide its 

 head in the dust, on a more attentive examination of the 

 peculiar construction of this singular beak, and the wisdom 

 by which it is so admirably adapted to the purposes and 

 mode of existence for which it was intended. This bird 

 is formed for skimming, while on the wing, the surface of 

 the sea for its food, which consists of small fish, shrimps, 

 young fry, &c., whose usual haunts are near the shore, 

 and towards the surface. That the lower mandible when 

 di]:)ped into the water may not retard the bird's progi'ess, 

 it is thinned and sharpened like the blade of a knife ; the 

 upper mandible, being at such times elevated above the 

 water, is curtailed in its length, as being less necessary, 

 but tapering gradually to a point, that, on shutting, it 

 may offer less opposition. To prevent inconvenience from 

 the rushing of the water, the mouth is confined to the 

 mere opening of the gaillet, which, indeed, prevents mas- 

 tication from taking place there ; but the stomach or 

 gizzard, to which this business is solely allotted, is of un- 

 common hardness, strength, and muscularity, surpassing, 

 in these resj^ects, any bird with which I am acquainted. 

 To all these is added a vast expansion of wing, to enable 

 the Rhynchops to sail with suflScient celerity while dijjping 

 in the water. The general proportion of our swiftest 

 Hawks and Swallows is as one to two; but in the present 

 case, as there is not only the resistance of the air, but 

 also that of the water to overcome, a still greater volume 

 of wing is given. The Black Skimmer measures nineteen 

 inches in length, and upwards of forty-four in extent. 

 In short, whoever has examined this curious apparatus, 

 and observed the possessor, with his ample wings, long 

 l)ending neck, and lower mandible occasionally dipped 

 into and jiloughing the surface, and the facility with which 

 he procures his food, cannot but consider it a mere playful 

 amusement, when compared with the dashing immersions of 



