Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BOAT'-BILL, n. [boat and bill.]

A genus of birds, the Cancroma, of two species, the crested and the brown; but by some ornithologists, they are considered as varieties of the same species. They are of the Grallic order, with a bill four inches long, not unlike a boat with the keel uppermost, or like the bowls of two spoons, with the hollow parts placed together. – Encyc.