I here saw a very extraordinary bird, called the Scissor-beak (Rhynchops nigra).

It has short legs, web feet, extremely long-pointed wings, and is of about the size of a tern.
The beak is flattened laterally, that is, in a plane at right angles to that of a spoonbill or duck.

It is as flat and elastic as an ivory paper-cutter, and the lower mandible, differently from every other bird, is an inch and a half longer than the upper.

In a lake near Maldonado, from which the water had been nearly drained, and which, in consequence, swarmed with small fry, I saw several of these birds, generally in small flocks, flying rapidly backwards and forwards close to the surface of the lake.

They kept their bills wide open, and the lower mandible half buried in the water.
Thus skimming the surface, they ploughed it in their course: the water was quite smooth, and it formed a most curious spectacle to behold a flock, each bird leaving its narrow wake on the mirror-like surface.