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SKIMMER

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Originally appearing in Volume V25, Page 188 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SKIMMER , the See also:

English name bestowed by T. See also:Pennant 1 in 1781 on a See also:North See also:American See also:bird which had already been figured and described by M. See also:Catesby (B. Carolina, i. pl. 90) as the " Cut-See also:water,"—as it appears still to be called on some parts of the See also:coast,2-remarkable for the unique formation of its See also:bill, in which the maxilla, or so-called upper mandible, is capable of much See also:vertical See also:movement, while the See also:lower mandible, which is considerably the longer of the two, is laterally compressed so as to be as thin as a See also:knife-blade. This bird is the Rhynchops See also:nigra of See also:Linnaeus, who, however, See also:united with it what proves to be an allied See also:species from See also:India that, having been indicated many years before by Petiver (Gazoph. naturae, tab. 76, fig. 2), on the authority of Buckley, was only technically named and described in 1838 by W. Swainson (Anim. Menageries, p. 360) as R. albicollis. A third species, R. flavirostris, inhabits See also:Africa; and examples from See also:South See also:America, though by many writers regarded as identical with R. nigra, are considered by See also:Howard Saunders (Proc.

Zool. Society, 1882, p. 522) to See also:

form a See also:fourth, the R. melanura of Swainson (ut supra, p. 340). All these 1 " I See also:call it Skimmer, from the manner of its See also:collecting its See also:food with the lower mandible, as it flies along the See also:surface of the water " (Gen. of Birds, p. 52). 2 Other English names applied to it in America are " See also:Razorbill," " Scissorbill,' and " See also:Shearwater." resemble one another very closely, and, apart from their singularly-formed bill, have the structure and See also:appearance of Terns (q.v.). Some authors make a See also:family of the genus Rhynchops, but it seems needless to remove it from the Laridae (see See also:Gum.). In breeding-habits the Skimmers thoroughly agree with the Terns, the largest species of which See also:group they nearly equal in See also:size, and indeed only seem to differ from them in the mode of taking their food, which of course is correlated with the extraordinary formation of their bill. (A.

End of Article: SKIMMER

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