23$ BLACK SKIMMER. 



its neck rather extended. It frequently reposed on its belly, 

 and stretching its neck, rested its long bill on the floor. It 

 spent most of its time in this way, or in dressing and arranging 

 its plumage, with its long scissors-like bill, which it seemed to 

 perform with great ease and dexterity. It refused every kind 

 of food offered it, and I am persuaded never feeds but when on 

 the wing. As to the reports of its frequenting oyster beds, and 

 feeding on these fish, they are contradicted by all those persons 

 with whom I have conversed, whose long residence on the 

 coast, where those birds are common, has given them the best 

 opportunities of knowing. 



The Shearwater is nineteen inches in length, from the point 

 of the bill to the extremity of the tail, the tips of the wings, 

 when shut, extend full four inches farther; breadth three feet 

 eight inches; length of the lower mandible four inches and a 

 half, of the upper three inches and a half, both of a scarlet red, 

 tinged with orange, and ending with black; the lower extreme- 

 ly thin, the upper grooved so as to receive the edge of the 

 lower; the nostril is large and pervious, placed in a hollow near 

 the base and edge of the upper mandible, where it projects great- 

 ly over the lower; upper part of the head, neck, back and sca- 

 pulars, deep black; wings the same, except the secondaries, 

 which are white on the inner vanes, and also tipt with white; 

 tail forked, consisting of twelve feathers, the two middle ones 

 about an inch and a half shorter than the exterior ones, all black, 

 broadly edged on both sides with white; tail-coverts white on 

 the outer sides, black in the middle; front, passing down the 

 neck below the eye, throat, breast, and whole lower parts, 

 pure white; legs and webbed feet bright scarlet, formed almost 

 exactly like those of the Tern. Weight twelve ounces avoir- 

 dupois. The female weighed nine ounces, and measured only 

 sixteen inches in length, and three feet three inches in extent, 

 the colours and markings were the same as those of the male, 

 with the exception of the tail, which was white, shafted and 

 broadly centred with black. 



The birds from which these descriptions were taken, were 



