BLACK SKIMMER. 239 



shot on the twenty-fifth of May, before they had begun to breed. 

 The female contained a great number of eggs, the largest of 

 which were about the size of duck-shot; the stomach, in both, 

 was an oblong pouch, ending in a remarkably hard gizzard, 

 curiously puckered or plaited, containing the half dissolved 

 fragments of the small silver-sides, pieces of shrimps, small 

 crabs, and skippers, or sand fleas. 



On some particular parts of the coast of Virginia, these birds 

 are seen, on low sand-bars, in flocks of several hundreds toge- 

 ther. There more than twenty nests have been found within 

 the space of a square rod. The young are at first so exactly of 

 a colour with the sand on which they sit, as to be with difficul- 

 ty discovered, unless after a close search. 



The Shearwater leaves our shores soon after his young are 

 fit for the journey. He is found on various coasts of Asia, as 

 well as America, residing principally near the tropics; and mi- 

 grating into the temperate regions of the globe only for the 

 purpose of rearing his young. He is rarely or never seen far 

 out at sea; and must not be mistaken for another bird of the 

 same name, a species of Petrel,* which is met with on every 

 part of the ocean, skimming with bended wings along the sum- 

 mits, declivities, and hollows of the waves. 



* Procellaria Puffinw, the Shearwater Petrel. 



