Of land-birds I observed but one sort, viz.:

Of a Snite.

This snite, which is also called the strand runner (because it keepeth about the strand), is no bigger than a lark.

Its bill narrow, thin, and corner'd withall. Our snites’ bills are at the farther end broader and roundish, and cut in with cross notches like a rasp to rasp wood withall; so that the whole upper jaw and bill looketh exactly like a rasp with its handle. Our snites are also bigger than those of Spitzbergen, otherwise they are very like one another in shape and colour; this bill, both above and below, is four square, of a brownish colour, and about two inches long. The head is roundish, and of the same thickness with the neck.

Their feet are made of three divided claws before, and one behind, which is very short; their legs are not very long. It is of the colour of a lark; but when the sun shines upon it, it shews blewish, very like those two colours observed on our ducks’ necks when the sun shines upon them: they feed upon the little gray worms and shrimps. We shot some of them in the South Harbour, near the cookery of Harlem: they had not the taste of fish at all.