The COMMON TERN (Sterna Hirundo) is abundant on the southern coast of England, and is spread over most of the shores of Europe. It flies in flocks, and utters a harsh note. Its breeding-place is upon the sand or shingle, above high water-mark; but no nest is made, beyond a slight cavity scraped out, for the reception of the eggs, which are olive, or greenish blotched with brown and gray. During the middle of the day, if the weather be sultry, this bird sits very little upon them, the heat of the sun being sufficient: they are, however, carefully covered at night. The young birds are at first enveloped in mottled down, and are assiduously attended by the parents, who are watchful and clamorous in their defence.

In the present species the black plumage of the top of the head is not lost in winter, but becomes duller and less intense. The sides of the head, the neck, and upper surface, are pearl gray; upper tail-coverts, white; tail, gray; the outer web of the first quill-feather is black; of the rest gray; breast, pale pearl gray; outer parts, white; bill red, with a black tip; legs, red.

The BLACK TERN (Sterna nigra) is an example of a species frequenting fresh water lakes and marshes, instead of the ocean. It is found in the north as far as the arctic circle; on the vast morasses of Hungary and Holland it abounds; and is a regular summer visitant to the fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, and the pools of Romney Marsh in Kent. It breeds in flocks in the marshes among reeds and aquatic herbage, and even on the large floating leaves of the water-lily, the nest being made of dried grasses and other vegetable fibres. The eggs are pale olive, blotched with brown and black. Its food consists of dragon-flies, may-flies, and such insects "haunt the stream and pool." Its flight is peculiarly buoyant, and characterized by rapid and abrupt evolutions, particularly when giving chase to its prey. Montagu mentions an attack upon this bird by a peregrine falcon, whose repeated pounces it foiled, and from which it ultimately escaped by the dexterity and surprising quickness of its manœuvres. Head and neck, black; whole of the

as

under surface of body, deep blackish gray; upper surface and tail, deep bluish gray; under tail-coverts, white. In winter the head and neck are white; the rest of the plumage being the same as in summer.

To enumerate the species even without any comments, would take up much space, and that without producing any benefit to our readers, to whom we are not delineating the minutiae of specific distinctions, but a general outline of groups, illustrated by examples.

The Terns may therefore be left, and we pass to another genus, namely, Rynchops, closely allied by manners, length of wing, and form of tail to the preceding, but distinguished by the extraordinary form of the beak. Only one species is as yet recognised, though it is probable that a bird mentioned by Latham, may prove to be a second.

THE BLACK Skimmer of tHE SEA, or Scissar-Bill, (Rhynchops nigra, LIN.) The structure of the organs of animated beings, and the express adaptation of those organs, each for its peculiar use, afford an inexhaustible source of rational inquiry. Studies of this kind must ever tend to elevate and expand our conceptions of the power and wisdom of the God of nature; they lead us through an elaborate chain of cause and effect, of means and end, till we arrive at the cause of causes, the Almighty, the self-existent Jehovah. Hence is the volume of nature of no mean use to him who reads it aright, and hence, as one of our motives, do we present these extracts from its pages to our readers.

The bird here faithfully represented, is, we need hardly say, a tenant of the ocean, over whose wide expanse it perpetually skims on wings of powerful flight, in search of its finny prey. It is remarkable on account of the singular mechanism of its bill. The bill of birds affords a clue to their food and natural habits: who can mistake the purpose of the strong, hooked, dentated beak of the falcon ? or of the spatulate mandibles of the spoonbill, or of the long slender bill of the snipe and curlew? In the present instance, also, we have an example of design,

at the least as clear, and, if we regard the mechanism of the organ, fully as remarkable, as is possessed by any of the feathered race.

The Skimmer is a bird of moderate size, being in

The

length about twenty inches; its stretch of wing, however, is very great, giving a measurement of three feet. mandibles of the bill are very compressed on the sides; the lower is much the longest, and bears no unapt resemblance to a knife-blade, or, rather perhaps, to a sharp and slender paper cutter. The upper is shorter, more pointed and rather stouter, having its inferior edge channelled with a groove, for the reception of the lower blade, which shuts somewhat like a razor into its handle.

The length of the lower mandible is five inches, that of the upper nearly four: both are orange red at their base, but gradually become black. What, it may be asked, can be the use of such a bill as this? We have all seen the way in which eels are speared. Two of the flat prongs of the instrument used for that purpose well represent the bill of the Skimmer, and such also is its use. The Skimmer, as its name imports, is ever traversing on

wing the surface of the ocean, with the lower mandible just dipping beneath the water, the gape of the mouth being open on meeting with its prey, (which consists of

THE BILL OF THE SKIMMER.

the smaller kinds of fishes,) it does not at once ingulf it in wide capacious mouth, or grasp it with a strong hooked bill, but taking it across, runs it up between these bladed mandibles by the impetuosity of its career, and thus securing it swallows it at leisure. The immense power of flight with which this bird is endowed, renders it perfectly at home hundreds of miles from the shore, and though it can swim with tolerable ease, it is seldom seen except on the wing. Its range is rather extensive, as it occurs along the American coast from New York to Guiana, and even Brazil; it is not, however, confined to the seas of the New World, being by no means uncommon in the East Indies, both on the Malabar coast and that of Coromandel. It is found along the shores of the Senegal, in Africa. It is said to associate, during the breeding season, in societies, consisting of from fifteen to twenty pairs, which fix upon some advantageous situation, (such as a bank or sand-bar uncovered by the tide, or some low islet,) for the purpose of incubation; each pair scooping a hollow in the sand, a few yards apart; in this are deposited three eggs of a clear white, with spots of dark and lighter ash colour.

The general colour is a dark umber brown, approaching black, over the wings and upper surface; the head, throat, and upper parts being white; the legs and feet, which are webbed, red. When we look at the habits of this bird, its food and its mode of taking it, and then consider its powers of flight, adapting it to traverse the

surface of the boisterous ocean, and its bill so expressly formed for spearing its victims, we cannot but acknowledge the Divine skill in the arrangement of its mechanism and instincts.

The Gulls next demand attention. Birds of the ocean, from whose stores they derive their sustenance, the Gulls are natives of every shore from north to south, but are most abundant in cold or temperate latitudes. Clothed with a mass of close feathers, they appear larger than they are in reality, as seen when on ample slowly flapping pinions, they sail along in a circling course, intent on the waves beneath. Rapid though their flight undoubtedly is, their powers are rather calculated for endurance, and the ease with which they make their way. Opposing the head in a direct line to the wind, they ride out the severest tempest, and the higher and rougher the waves the more abundantly is their prey brought within their reach. They are incapable of diving, but skim their food from the surface, or pick it up along the muddy shores after the ebbing of the tide; it consists of fishes, alive or dead, mollusca, and even the carcasses of drowned animals. They breed in large flocks, some on the sands of small islands; others among the marshes of the shore; others on the rocks overhanging the ocean. Their moult is double, but only partial in spring, and the reverse takes place to that which we noticed in the terns; the head and neck being white, but becoming streaked and varied with gray, or dull black, or altogether black during winter.

The Gulls are divided into two sections or genera, the first of which comprehends the True Gulls, (Larus,) the other the Parasitic Gulls, (Lestris.)

The genus Larus is thus characterized :-Beak moderate, strong, hard, compressed, and bent at the tip; the lower mandible having a projecting angle, whence it ascends to the point; nostrils placed in the middle of the bill, oblong and narrow; wings long; tail even; the three toes before entirely webbed, hind toe small.

Many species are common on our shores, and none of