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BOAT-BILL.

Tus singular-looking bird is so called from the
curious shape of its bill, which bears, as will be seen,
some slight resemblance to a boat with its keel upwards.

It is a native of Guiana, Brazil, and other parts of
the continent of South America, and is said to be of
recluse and solitary habits; but little, however, is known
of the lesser details of its natural history. It frequents
marshes and rivers, fens and swamps, and in its mode
of life resembling the heron, to which it is allied, and
among which birds it is accordingly classed by naturalists;
perched on some branch overhanging the water, it watches
patiently for the approach of any fish on which it can
drop, and on which it accordingly plunges somewhat
after the manner of the kingfisher. It has also been
supposed to feed on crabs, from which is derived one
of its Latin generic names, but it is not by any means
certain that this is the case. Leach however says, in
his “Zoological Miscellany,” that it feeds on fishes, worms,
and crustacea; in search of which it is found frequenting
the borders of the sea. Lesson, on the other hand, the
celebrated French naturalist, says that it perches on
trees by the sides of rivers, from which it pounces on
fish, which are its food, and not crabs. It is common,
he says, in the flooded savannahs of South America.

Some years since one of these birds was exhibited
alive in London, at Exeter Change. It had the dismal
look of the rest of the heron tribe, and was fed on fish.
The bill of the heron is long, straight, compressed, and
pointed, and in the form of this part the boat-bill