148 
EHYNCHOPS NIGRA. 
only during the night, or in wet and stormy weather. 
The young remain for several weeks before they are 
able to fly ; are fed with great assiduity by both parents ; 
and seem to delight in lying with loosened wings, flat 
on the sand, enjoying its invigorating warmth. They 
breed but once in the season. 
The singular conformation of the bill of this bird has 
excited much surprise ; and some writers, measuring 
the divine proportions of nature by their own contracted 
standards of conception, in the plenitude of their vanity 
have pronounced it to be “ a lame and defective weapon. 5 ' 
Such ignorant presumption, or rather impiety, ought 
to hide its head in the dust on a calm display of the 
peculiar construction of this singular bird, and the 
wisdom by which it is so admirably adapted to the 
purposes or mode of existence for which it was intended. 
The sheerwater is formed for skimming, while on wing, 
the surface of the sea for its food, which consists of 
small fish, shrimps, young fry, &c. whose usual haunts 
are near the shore, and towards the surface. That the 
lower mandible, when dipt into and cleaving the water, 
might not retard the bird’s way, it is thinned and 
sharpened like the blade of a knife ; the upper mandible, 
being, at such times, elevated above water, is curtailed 
in its length, as being less necessary, but tapering 
gradually to a point, that, on shutting, it may offer 
less opposition. 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 respects, anjr other water bird with 
w r hich I am acquainted. To all these is added a vast 
expansion of wing, to enable the bird to sail with 
sufficient celerity while dipping in the water. The 
general proportion of the length of our sw iftest haw ks 
and swallow s, to their breadth, is as one to tw r o ; but, 
in the present case, as there is not only the resistance 
of the air, but also that of the water, to overcome, a 
