TASTE. 107 



Nothing 1 could have been farther from fact than these 

 hypothetical statements. Dr. Buchanan informs us 

 that two avosets, which were wounded on an island 

 in the Hoogly, near Calcutta, lived for some time 

 afterwards, being fed with small fish, and these they 

 readily scooped up from a pan of water*; while 

 Wilson says of the American avoset (Recurvirostra 

 Americana, PENNANT), that " it almost constantly 

 frequents the shallow pools in the salt marshes, 

 wading about, often to the belly, in search of marine 

 worms, snails, and various insects that abound among 

 the soft muddy bottoms of the pools f.'' 



In the same mistaken spirit, Buffon libels the con- 

 trivance of the bill in the skimmer or cutwater 

 (Rhynchops nigra), which is well described by Ray 

 as consisting of two pieces extremely unequal, the 

 lower mandible, being long and extended dispropor- 

 tionately, and projecting far beyond the upper into 

 which it falls like a razor into its haft J. From this 

 Buffon concludes that " it can neither eat sidewise nor 

 gather food, nor peck forwards." But though he here 

 asserts in so many words that it cannot "gather 

 food," he adds, that " to catch its prey with this awk- 

 ward and defective instrument, the bird is obliged to 

 fly skimming the surface, with, its lower mandible 

 cutting the water." He further quotes M. De la 

 Borde, who says these birds " feed on small fish which 

 they catch on the wing where the water is shallow, 

 keeping their lower mandible almost always in the 

 water, and when they feel a fish they close both 

 mandibles ," and of course secure the prey. So far, 

 then, from the bill of the shearwater being "an awk- 

 ward and defective instrument, 5 ' it appears, even from 

 Buffon's own showing, to be as admirably adapted to 



* Montagu, Ornith. Diet. p. 14, 2d ed. 



t Atner. On. vii. 133. $ P. 104-5. 



Oiseaux, Art. Le Bec-en-Ciseaux. 



