BLACK SKIMMER. 26 1 



remain for several weeks before they acquire the full use of 

 their wings, and are during that period assiduously fed by both 

 parents. At first they are scarcely distinguishable from the 

 sand by the similarity of their color, and during this period 

 may often be seen basking in the sun and spreading out their 

 wings upon the warm beach. The pair, retiring to the South 

 in September or as soon as their young are prepared for their 

 voyage, raise but a single brood in the season. 



The Skimmer is, I believe, unknown to the north of the sea- 

 coast of New Jersey, and probably passes the period of repro- 

 duction along the whole of the southern coast of the United 

 States. The species is also met with in the equatorial regions, 

 where it is alike resident as far as Surinam, but never pene- 

 trates into the interior, being, properly speaking, an oceanic 

 genus. Its voice, like that of the Tern, is loud, harsh, and 

 stridulous. In quest of its usual prey of small fish and mol- 

 lusca, it is frequently observed skimming close along shore 

 about the first of the flood tide, proceeding leisurely with a 

 slowly flapping flight, and balancing itself on its long and out- 

 stretched wings ; it is seen every now and then to dip, with 

 bended neck, its lower mandible into the sea, and with open 

 mouth receives its food, thus gleaning and ploughing along the 

 yielding surface of the prolific deep. The birds keep also 

 among the sheltered inlets which intervene between the main- 

 land and the sea, where they roam about in companies of 

 eight or ten together, passing and repassing at the flood tide, 

 like so many grotesque and gigantic Swallows, 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 situa- 

 tions, and around the masses of floating sea-weed and wrecks. 

 But though so exclusively maritime, the range of the Cut- 

 waters is entirely limited to the peaceful and calm borders of 

 the strand ; notwithstanding the vast expansion of their long 

 wings, they have no inducement to follow the adventurous 

 flight of the Petrel, as the ever-agitated and wave-tossed sur- 



