EXTERNAL ANATOMY. BILL OP IIHYNCHOPS. 73 
sition. To prevent inconvenience from the rushing of 
the water, the mouth is confined to the mere opening 
of the gullet, which, indeed, prevents 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 re- 
spects any other water-bird with which I am acquainted. 
To all these is added a vast expansion of w'ing, to enable 
the bird to sail with sufficient celerity while dipping in 
the water. The general proportion of the wing of our 
swiftest hawks and swallows to their breadtli, 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 over- 
come, a still greater volume of wing is given, the sheer- 
water measuring nineteen inches in length and upwards 
of forty-four in extent. In short, whoever has atten- 
tively examined this curious apparatus, and observed 
the possessor, with his ample wings, long, bending neck, 
and lower mandible, occasionally dipt into and ploughing 
the surface, and the facility witli which he procures his 
food, cannot but consider it a mere playful amusement, 
when compared with the dashing immersions of the 
tern, the gull, or the fish-hawk, who, to the superficial 
observer, appear so superiorly accommodated. The 
sheerwater is most frequently seen skimming close along 
shore, about the first of tlie flood. — I have observed 
eight or ten in company, passing and repassing at high 
water, dipping, with extended neck, their open bills 
into the water, with as much apparent ease as swallows 
glean up flies.” We have now enumerated the most 
remarkable of those forms with w'hich nature has diver- 
sified the bill of birds : but these forms, again, are 
varied and combined in such a multitude of ways, that 
It would be useless, if not impossible, to attempt further 
definitions. Some systematists, however, have chosen to 
make these variations the ground- work of their systems, 
to the utter confusion of all natural arrangement, and 
the no small perplexity of the student. Upon this prin- 
ciple the falcons must come next the parrots ; the fly- 
