238 
BLACK SKIMMEE. 
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 those birds are common, has given them the best 
opportunities of knowing. 
The Shearwater is nineteen inches in length, from the point 
of the bill to the extremity of the tail, the tips of the wings, 
when shut, extend full four inches farther; breadth three feet 
eight inches; length of the lower mandible four inches and a 
half, of the upper three inches and a half, both of a scarlet red, 
tinged with orange, and ending with black; the lower extreme- 
ly thin, the upper grooved so as to receive the edge of the 
lower; the nostril is large and pervious, placed in a hollow near 
the base and edge of the upper mandible, where it projects great- 
ly over the lower; upper part of the head, neck, back and sca- 
pulars, deep black; wings the same, except the secondaries, 
which are white on the inner vanes, and also tipt with white; 
tail forked, consisting of twelve feathers, the two middle ones 
about an inch and a half shorter than the exterior ones, all black, 
broadly edged on both sides with white; tail-coverts white on 
the outer sides, hlack in the middle; front, passing down the 
neck below the eye, throat, breast, and whole lower parts, 
pure white; legs and webbed feet bright scarlet, formed almost 
exactly like those of the Tern. Weight twelve ounces avoir- 
dupois. The female weighed nine ounceSj and measured only 
sixteen inches in length, and three feet three inches in extent, 
the colours and markings were the same as those of the male, 
with the exception of the tail, which was white, shafted and 
broadly centred with black. 
The birds from which these descriptions were taken, were 
