92 
BLACK SKIMMER. 
became tame and even familiar. It generally stood with its legs 
erect, its body horizontal, and its neck rather extended. It fre- 
quently 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 re- 
fused 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 shell-fish, they are contradicted by all 
those persons with whom I have conversed, whose long residence 
on the coast where these 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 in black; the lower extremely thin, the upper grooved 
so as to receive the edge of the lower ; the nostril is large and per- 
vious, placed in a hollow near the base and edge of the upper man- 
dible, where it projects greatly over the lower; upper part of the 
head, neck, back and scapulars deep black ; wings the same, ex- 
cept the secondaries, whicli 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 wdth white ; tail-co- 
verts white on the outer sides, black 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 avoirdu- 
pois. The female weighed nine ounces, and measured only sixteen 
inches in length, and three feet three inches in extent ; the colors 
and markings were the same as those of the male, with the excep- 
