144 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 
been shot at, feigned to be wounded, and with hanging wing, 
diverted them from the right track. 
haustible supplies. 
The strand-birds of the high northera 
regions fly from the winter to coasts 
where milder winds are blowing. But 
as soon as the summer’s sun begins to 
exert, its power, the desert shores of 
the Arctic Ocean become animated 
with swarms of plovers, sand-pipers, 
rails, herons, and phalaropes, to whom 
the thawed strand opens its inex- 
Soon, however, the approach of winter 
hardens once more the soil, want follows upon abundance, 
Plover. 
and the whole long-legged host hastens 
to abandon the ice-bound strand, which 
opposes an impenetrable armour to their 
beaks. 
The food of the different kinds of strand- 
birds varies, and consequently their bills 
are variously formed. Those that live upon 
worms have generally a long thin awl- 
shaped bill, well fitted for picking their 
prey out of the soft muddy or sandy soil. 
If the small creatures conceal themselves 
under large stones, they are secure from 
these attacks; but then comes the Turn-stone, (Tringa m- 
terpres,) who with his bill, a little turned up at the top, raises 
the stone as with a lever, and makes sad havoc amongst the 
defenceless garrison. 
The Sea-pie uses its wedge-shaped bill for opening shell-fish 
Scissor-bill (Rhynchops nigra), 
with greatadroitness ; but the industry 
of the Black Skimmer or Cut-water, 
(Rhynchops nigra,) is still more 
remarkable. The bill of this bird, 
which chiefly inhabits the hot coasts 
of America, is quite unique in its 
kind; the under mandible, which is 
in fact nothing but a wedge, being 
about an inch longer than the upper 
one, by which it is clasped. The sandy beach of Penco, says 
