384 BLACK SKIMMER, OR SHEERWATER. 



There are also numerous inlets among the low islands between 

 the sea-beacli and mainland of Cape May, where I have 

 observed the sheerwaters, eight or ten in company, passing 

 and repassing, at high water, particular estuaries of those 

 creeks that run up into the salt marshes, dipping, with 

 extended neck, their open bills into the water, with as much 

 apparent ease as swallows glean up flies from the surface. 

 On examining the stomachs of several of these, shot at the 

 time, they contained numbers of a small fish usually called 

 silver-sides, from a broad line of a glossy silver colour that 

 runs from the gills to the tail. The mouths of these inlets 

 abound with this fry or fish, probably feeding on the various 

 matters washed down from the marshes. 



The voice of the sheerwater is harsh and screaming, resem- 

 bling that of the tern, but stronger. It flies with a slowly 

 flapping flight, dipping occasionally, with steady expanded 

 wings and bended neck, its lower mandible into the sea, and 

 with open mouth receiving its food as it ploughs along the 

 surface. It is rarely seen swimming on the water ; but fre- 

 quently rests in large parties on the sandbars at low water. 

 One of these birds which I wounded in the wing, and kept in 

 the room beside me for several days, soon became tame, and 

 even familiar. It generally stood with its legs erect, its body 

 horizontal, and its neck rather extended. It frequently 

 reposed on its belly, and stretching its neck, rested its long 

 bill on the floor. It spent most of its time in this way, or in 

 dressing and arranging its plumage with its long scissors-like 

 bill, which it seemed to perform with great ease and dexterity. 

 It refused every kind of food offered it, and I am persuaded 

 never feeds but when on the wing. As to the reports of its 

 frequenting oyster-beds, and feeding on these fish, they are 

 contradicted by all those persons with whom I have conversed 

 whose long residence on the coast where these birds are com- 

 mon has given them the best opportunities of knowing. 



The sheerwater is nineteen inches in length, from the point 

 of the bill to the extremity of the tail ; the tips of the wings, 



