CHECK LIST OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 119 



759. Phalacrocorax violaceus resplendens (And.) Ridg. B . c . R646a. 



Baird's Cormoraiit. 



760. Plotus anhinga L. B 023. c 536. R 649. 



Anhinga; Darter; Suake-bird. 



761. Tachypetes aquilus (L.) V. B 619. c 537. R 639. 



Frigate Bird ; Man-of-war Bird. 



762. Phaethon sethereus L. B . c . R 655. (?!) 



Red-billed Tropic-bird. 



763. Phaethon flavirostris Brandt. B 629. c 538. R 654. 



Yellow-billed Tropic-bird. 



764. Stercorarius skua (Briinn.) Cones. B 652. c 539. R 696. 



Skua. 



765. Stercorarius pomatorhirms (Temm.) Lawr. B 653. c 540. R 697. 



Pomatorhiiie Ja'ger. 



759. P. v. res-plen'-dens. Lat. resplendens, resplendent, splendid, or lustrous; resplcndeo or 

 splendeo, I shine, gleam. Splendor is derived by some etymologists from o"ir\y(i')56s, 

 live coals. 



Not in the orig. ed. Since recognized by Ridgway, Pr. Nat. Mus., iii, 1880, p. 222. 

 Farallone Islands. 



760. Plo'-tus an-hm'-ga. Gr. ir\(ar6s, being a good swimmer; from irAww or ir\tca, I swim, 



navigate ; Lat. plotus ; and very early applied, in ornithology, to divers swimming birds. 

 Anhinga is a barbarous word, from the Portuguese anhina, and equivalent to the 

 Lat. anguina, snaky; annuls, a snake; very well applied to this curious bird, which in its 

 subaqueous excursions strangely resembles a swimming serpent. See Coues, Bull. Nutt. 

 Orn. Club, iii, 1878, p. 101. We should like to substitute the Latin form of the word, 

 but that would probably be going too far. 



761. Tach-y'-pgt-es a'-quil-us. Gr. raxv^fT-ns, Lat. tachy petes, flying rapidly; TOX^S, swift, 



and n-erofj.ai, I fly. Lat. aquilus, swarthy, dark-colored. The word is vaguely sup- 

 posed by most persons to have something to do with ar/nila, an eagle, in consideration 

 of the raptorial prowess of this piratical high-flyer ; but it would in that case be either 

 aqulla, substantive, an eagle, or aquilinus, adjective, aquiline. Aquila and aquilus are 

 doubtless the same word, etymologic-ally ; but the present specific name has nothing 

 further to do with the genus Aqnila, which see, No. 532. 



762. P. ae-the'-rS-us. Gr. alOeptos, Lat. (ethereus, etherial, relating to the aid-ftp, ailher, ether, or 



serene upper air, as opposed to arjp, aeV, the lower aerial region ; the birds of this genus 

 being noted for soaring aloft. Th. uWca, &<a. 



Not in the orig. ed. If there be no mistake in identification, this species has 

 straggled to Newfoundland. See Freke, Comp. List B. of Eur. and N. A., p. 44 (rcpaged 

 from Proc. Roy. Soc. Dubl., 1879). 



763. Pha'-g-thon fla-vi-ros'-tris. Gr. QaeQav, Lat. Phaethon, a proper name, an epithet of the 



sun ; Phaethon having once undertaken to drive the chariot of the sun, his father Helios ; 

 well applied to these highly aerial birds of the Tropics. Sometimes very wrongly 

 written Phcelhon, and even Phcelon. "Lsit. fiacirostris, yellow-billed. 



764. Ster-cSr-a'-ri-us sku'-a. Lat. Stercorarius, having to do with ordure, a scavenger; stercus, 



excrement ; from the filthy habits of the bird. Skua is the name applied to the bird 

 by the Faroese. 



765. S. po-ma-tQ-rhin'-us. Gr. Troika, genitive iraj/taroj, a flap, lid, cover; and pis, genitive pivos, 



