flies. 
O F BIRD S. 
74 
obliged to {kim the furface of the water, Abhing 
it with its fewer. mandible, to catch the fith as it 
Though its wings be long its flight is 
flow, that it may the better fee the little fifth on 
which it preys. In ftormy weather it feeks the 
fhore, and lives on oyfters and other fhell fifh, 
which, from the form of its bill, it can readily 
_ open. 
Skimmers are fund in the American Seas: 
their backs are black or dufky, their breafts and 
ttomachs white, and the bill is red at the bafe: 
AN LL the Birds which we have been reading 
about in this volume, lune to the order 
of the Anferes. 
‘The general character of this order is, that the 
beak is employed, in fome genera, asa kind of 
fieve or filterto ftrain the water and ftop the food; 
it is fmooth, covered with an epidermis, that is 
{kin, and in many fpecies wideft at the end. 
The feet are webbed for fwimming ; the thighs 
are flattened and fhert. 
The 

