86 BLACK SKIMMER. 



assiduity by both parents ; and seem to delight in lying with 

 loosened wings, flat on the sand, enjoying its invigorating warmth. 

 They breed but onee in the season. 



The singular conformation of the bill of this bird has excited 

 much surprise; and some writers, measuring the divine propor- 

 tions of nature by their own contracted standards of conception, 

 in the plenitude of their vanity have pronounced it to be " a lame 

 and defective weapon."' Such ignorant presumption, or rather im- 

 piety, ought to hide its head in the dust on a calm display of the 

 peculiar construction of this singular bird, and the wisdom by 

 which it is so admirably adapted to the purposes or mode of exist- 

 ence for which it was intended. The Sheerwater is formed for 

 skimming, while on wing, the surface of the sea for its food, which 

 consists of small fish, shrimps, young fry, &c., whose usual haunts 

 are near the shore, and towards the surface. That the lower man- 

 dible, when dipt into and cleaving the water, might not retard the 

 bird's way, it is thinned and sharpened like the blade of a knife; 

 the upper mandible being at such times elevated above water is 

 curtailed in its length, as being less necessary, but tapering gra- 

 dually to a point, that, on shutting, it may offer less opposition. 

 To prevent inconvenience from the rushing of the water the mouth 

 is confined to the mere opening of the gullet, which indeed pre- 

 vents mastication taking place there; but the stomach, or gizzard, 

 to which this business is solely allotted, is of uncommon hardness, 

 strength and muscularity, far surpassing in these respects any other 

 water bird with which I am acquainted. To all these is added a 

 vast expansion of wing, to enable the bird to sail with sufficient 

 celerity while dipping in the water. The general proportion of 

 the length of our swiftest Hawks and Swallows, to their breadth, 

 is as one to two; but in the present case, as there is not only the 

 resistance of the air, but also that of the water to overcome, a still 

 greater volume of wing is given, the Sheerwater measuring nine- 

 teen inches in length, and upwards of forty-four in extent. In 



