Skimmers.
Photo by Scholastic Photo. Co.] [Parson's Green.
HERRING-GULL.
So called from its habit of following the shoals of herrings.
The Skimmers are tern-like birds, with a very wide geographical distribution, occurring in India, Africa, and North and South America, and remarkable for the very extraordinary form of the beak. The upper jaw is much shorter than the lower, and both are compressed to the thinness of a knife-blade. This beak is associated with, and is probably an adaptation to, an equally remarkable method of feeding, which has been admirably described by Darwin, who watched them feeding in a lake near Maldonado.
"They kept their bills," he says, "wide open, and the lower mandible half buried in the water. Thus skimming the surface, they ploughed it in their course; ... and it formed a most curious spectacle to behold a flock, each bird leaving its narrow wake on the mirror-like surface. In their flight ... they dexterously manage with their projecting lower mandible to plough up small fish, which are secured by the upper and shorter half of their scissor-like bills."
The Gulls.
Photo by Scholastic Photo. Co.] [Parson's Green.