514 BLACK SKIMMER, OR SHEERWATER. 
tent; the bill is an inch and a quarter in length, sharp-pomted, and of 
a deep black color; a patch of black covers the crown, auriculars, 
spot before the eye and hind head; the forehead, eyelids, sides of the 
neck, passing quite round below the hind head, and whole lower parts 
are pure white; the back is dark ash, each feather broadly tipped 
with brown; the wings, a dark lead color, extending an inch and a 
half beyond the tail, which is also of the same tint, and slightly 
forked; shoulders of the wing, brownish ash; legs and webbed feet, 
tawny. It had a sharp, shrill cry when wounded and taken. 
This is probably the Brown Tern mentioned by Willoughby, of 
which so many imperfect accounts have already been given. 
BLACK SKIMMER, OR SHEERWATER.—RHYNCHOPS NI- 
GRA.— Fig. 242. 
Arct. Zool. No, 445. — Cateshy, i. 90.— Le bec-en-ciseaux, Buff. viii. 454, Tab 
36. — Peale’s Museum, No. 3530. 
RHYNCHOPS NIGRA.— Linn xvus.* 
Rhynchops nigra, Steph. Cont. Sh. Zool. vol. xiii. p. 136.— Cuv. Reg. Anim. i. 
522. — Bonap. Synop.— Less. Man. d’ Orn. ii. p. 385. 
Tuis truly singular fowl is the only species of its tribe hitherto dis- 
covered. Like many others, it is a bird of passage in the United 
States ; and makes its first appearance on the shores of New Jersey 
early in May. It resides there, as well as along the whole Atlantic 
coast during the summer; and retires early inSeptember. Its favorite 
* This very curious genus is composed, according to ornithologists, of two spe- 
cies, — that of our author and the R. flavirostris, Vieillot; though I suspect that 
another is involved in the birds which I have seen from the southern ocean. In 
form and plumage they bear a strong resemblance to the Terns, but are at once 
distinguished by the bill, which will show the greatest instance of the lateral devel- 
opment of that member. The manners of these birds, in adaptation to the struc- 
ture of the bill and mouth, are noted by our author ; and it seems generally thought, 
that their practice of skimming and cutting the water, as it were in search of food, 
is their ae mode of procuring subsistence. The immense flocks of this species, 
mingled with Gulls and Terns, with their peculiar mode of feeding on some bivalve 
shells, is thus described by Lesson, and shows that sometimes a more substantial 
food is required, for the procuring of which the form of their bill is no less beauti- 
fully adapted, and that the opinion of Wilson is at variance with reality : — “ Il 
formait avec les mouettes et quelque autres oiseaux de mer, des bandes tellement 
€paisses, qu’il resemblait a des longues écharpes noires et mobiles qui obscurcis- 
saient le ciel depuis les rives de Penco jusqu’a l’ile de Quiriquine, dans un espace 
de douze milles. Quoique le bec-en-ciseaux semble défavorisé par la forme de son 
bec, nous aquimes la preuve qu’il savait s’en servir avec avantage et avee le plus 
grande adresse. Les plages sablonneuses de Penco sont en effet remplies de 
Mactres, coquilles bivalves, que la marée descendente laisse presque a sec dans 
des petites mares ; le bec-en-ciseaux tres au fait de ce phenomene, se place auprés 
de ces mollusques, attend que leur valve sent ouvre un peu, et profite aussitét de 
ee mouvement en‘ enforcant la lame infeérieure, et tranchante de son bec entre le 
valves qui se referment. L’oiseaux enléve alors la_coquille, Ja frappe sur la gréve, 
coupe le ligament du molusque, et peut ensuite avaler celui-ci sans obstacle. Plu- 
sicurs fois nous avons été temoins de cet instinct trés perfectionné.” — Ep. 
