BLACK SKIMMER. 
261 
remain for several weeks before they acquire the full use of 
their wings, and are during that period assiduously fed by both 
parents. At first they are scarcely distinguishable from the 
sand by the similarity of their color, and during this period 
may often be seen basking in the sun and spreading out their 
wings upon the warm beach. The pair, retiring to the South 
in September or as soon as their young are prepared for their 
voyage, raise but a single brood in the season. 
The Skimmer is, I believe, unknown to the north of the sea- 
coast of New Jersey, and probably passes the period of repro- 
duction along the whole of the southern coast of the United 
States. The species is also met with in the equatorial regions, 
where it is alike resident as far as Surinam, but never pene- 
trates into the interior, being, properly speaking, an oceanic 
genus. Its voice, like that of the i ern, is loud, harsh, and 
stridulous. In quest of its usual prey of small fish and mol- 
lusca, it is frequently observed skimming close along shore 
about the first of the flood tide, proceeding leisurely with a 
slowly flapping flight, and balancing itself on its long and out- 
stretched wings ; it is seen every now and then to dip, with 
bended neck, its lower mandible into the sea, and with open 
mouth receives its food, thus gleaning and ploughing along the 
yielding surface of the prolific deep. The birds keep also 
among the sheltered inlets which intervene between the main- 
land and the sea, where they roam about in companies of 
eight or ten together, passing and repassing at the flood tide, 
like so many grotesque and gigantic Swallows, the estuaries of 
the creeks and inlets which penetrate into the salt-marshes, 
exhibiting the necessary alertness in the capture of their 
approaching prey, which often consists of small crabs and the 
more minute crustaceous animals which abound in such situa- 
tions, and around the masses of floating sea-weed and wrecks. 
But though so exclusively maritime, the range of the Cut- 
waters is entirely limited to the peaceful and calm borders of 
the strand ; notwithstanding the vast expansion of their long 
wings, they have no inducement to follow the adventurous 
flight of the Petrel, as the ever-agitated and wave-tossed sur- 
