148 RHYNCHOPS NIGRA. 



only during the night, or in wet and stormy weather. 

 The young remain for several weeks before they are 

 able to fly ; are fed with great assiduity by both parents ; 

 and seem to delight in lying with loosened wings, flat 

 on the sand, enjoying its invigorating warmth. They 

 breed but once in the season. 



The singular conformation of the bill of this bird has 

 excited much surprise ; and some writers, measuring 

 the divine proportions of nature by their own contracted 

 standards of conception, in the plenitude of their vanity 

 have pronounced it to be " a lame and defective weapon." 

 Such ignorant presumption, or rather impiety, ought 

 to hide its head in the dust on a calm display of the 

 peculiar construction of this singular bird, and the 

 wisdom by which it is so admirably adapted to the 

 purposes or mode of existence for which it was intended. 

 The sheerwater is formed for skimming, while on 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 dipt into and cleaving the water, 

 might not retard the bird's way, it is thinned and 

 sharpened like the blade of a knife ; the upper mandible, 

 being, at such times, elevated above 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 gullet, which, indeed, prevents 

 mastication taking place there ; but the stomach, or 

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

 uncommon hardness, strength, and muscularity, far 

 surpassing, in these respects, any other water bird with 

 which I am acquainted. To all these is added a vast 

 expansion of wing, to enable the bird to sail with 

 sufficient celerity while dipping in the water. The 

 general proportion of the length of our swiftest hawks 

 ai.il swallows, to their breadth, 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 





