BLACK SKIMMER. 
93 
tion of the tail, which was white, shafted and broadly centred with 
black. 
The birds from which these descriptions were taken were shot 
on the twenty-fifth of May, before they had begun to breed. The 
female contained a great number of eggs, the largest of which were 
about the size of duck-shot ; the stomach, in both, was an oblong 
pouch, ending in a remarkably hard gizzard, curiously puckered 
or plaited, containing the half dissolved fragments of the small 
silver-sides, pieces of shrimps, small crabs, and skippers or sand 
fleas. 
On some particular parts of the coast of Virginia these birds 
are seen, on low sand-bars, in flocks of several hundreds together. 
There more than twenty nests have been found within the space 
of a square rod. The young are at first so exactly of a color with 
the sand on which they sit, as to be with difficulty discovei-ed, un- 
less after a close search. 
The Shearwater leaves our shoi'es soon after his young arc fit 
for the journey. He is found on various coasts of Asia, as well as 
America, residing principally near the tropics ; and migrating into 
the temperate regions of the globe only for the purpose of rearing 
his young. He is rarely or never seen far out at sea ; and must 
not be mistaken for another bird of the same name, a species of 
Petrel,* which is met with on every part of the ocean, skimming 
with bended wings along the summits, declivities and hollows of 
the waves. This species winters on the southern coasts of the 
United States. 
^ Procellaria Puffinus, the Shearwater Petrel. 
2 A 
VOL. VII. 
