Skimmers 



bone, viewed apart, looks like a short-handled pitchfork. The 

 upper mandible is also compressed, but less so, nor is it so 

 obtuse at the end ; its substance is nearly hollow . . . and 

 it is freely movable by means of an elastic hinge at the forehead." 



But curious as the bill is when one examines a museum 

 specimen, it becomes vastly more interesting to watch in active 

 use on the Atlantic. The black skimmer, the only one that visits 

 our continent, happily keeps close enough to shore when hunting 

 for the small fish, shrimps, and mollusks that high tide brings near, 

 for us to observe its operations. With leisurely, graceful flight, 

 though with frequent flapping of its very long wings, the bird 

 floats and balances just over the water, and as it progresses over 

 a promising shoal teeming with living food, suddenly the lower 

 half of the bladelike bill drops down just below the surface of the 

 water, and with increased velocity of flight the bird literally 

 "plows the main," as Mr. Chapman has said, and receives a 

 rich harvest through the gaping entrance. Thus cutting under or 

 grazing the surface, with the fore part of its body inclined down- 

 ward, the skimmer follows the plow into the likeliest feeding 

 grounds, which are the estuaries of rivers, sandy shoals, inlets of 

 creeks, the salt marshes, and around the floating "drift" of the 

 beaches. Though strictly maritime, it never ventures out on 

 mid-ocean like the gulls and petrels. From Atlantic City, Cape 

 May, and southward to Florida, the skimmer is an uncommon 

 though likely enough sight to cause a genuine sensation when 

 discovered at work. It is also credited with using its bill as a 

 sort of oyster knife to open mollusks. 



Flocks of skimmers come out of the tropics in May, and, 

 like the terns, choose a sandy shore for their nesting colony, and, 

 like the terns again, cpnstruct no proper nest for the three or four 

 buflfy white, chocolate-marked eggs that are dropped on the sand, 

 high up on the beach, among the drift and shells. Incubating 

 duties rest lightly with the skimmers, also, while the sun shines 

 with generating warmth, so that the natural bedtime of the 

 mother is all the confinement she endures unless the weather be 

 stormy. In September the young birds are able to migrate long 

 distances, although for several weeks after they are hatched they 

 must be fed and tended by their parents ; the only use they have 

 for their wings during June and July, apparently, being to stretch 

 them while basking in the sun on the beach. The voice of the 



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