Oct. 1833. 



SCISSOR-BEAK. 



161 



and the musquitoes were very troublesome. I exposed my 

 hand for five minutes^ and it was soon black with them ; I 

 do not suppose there could have been less than fifty, all busy 

 sucking. 



October 15th. — We got under way and passed Punta 

 Gorda, where there is a colony of tame Indians^ from the 

 province of Missiones. We sailed rapidly down the current, 

 but before sunset, from a silly fear of bad weather, we brought 

 to in a narrow arm of the river. I took the boat and rowed 

 some distance up this creek. It was very narrow, winding, 

 and deep; on each side, a wall thirty or forty feet high, 

 formed by trees intwined with creepers, gave to the canal a 

 singularly gloomy appearance. I here saw a very extra- 

 ordinary bird, called the Scissor-beak {Khyncops nigra). It 

 has short legs, web feet, extremely long-pointed wings, and is 

 of about the size of a tern. The beak is flattened laterally, 

 that is, in a plane at right angles to that of a spoon- 

 bill, or duck. It is as flat and elastic as an ivory paper- 

 cutter^ and the lower mandible, differently from every other 

 bird, is an inch and a half longer than the upper. I will here 

 detail all I know of the habits of the scissor-beak. It is found 

 both on the east and west coasts, between lat. 30° and 45°, 

 and frequents either salt or fresh water. The specimen now 

 at the Zoological Society was shot at a lake near Maldonado, 

 from which the water had been nearly drained, and which, 

 in consequence, swarmed with small fry. I there saw several 

 of these birds, generally in small flocks, flying backwards and 

 forwards, close to the surface of the lake. They kept their 

 bills wide open, and with the lower mandible half buried in 

 the water. Thus skimming the surface, they ploughed it in 

 their course : the water was quite smooth, and it formed a 

 most curious spectacle to behold a flock, each bird leaving its 

 narrow wake on the mirror-like surface. In their flight they 

 frequently twist about with extreme rapidity, and so dex- 

 terously manage, that with their projecting lower mandible 

 they plough up small fish, which are secured by the upper 

 half of their scissor-like bills. This fact I repeatedly saw, as, 



VOL. nr. M 



