tJ^O THE KKATHEREO TKIBES. 



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water with such surprising skill, that one is astonished how so large a body can plunge 

 with so little noise, the agitation of the water being apparently not greater than that 

 occasioned by the gliding of an eel." 



To this account Mr. Bartram adds : " They delight to sit like peaceable communities 

 on the dry limbs of trees hanging o\er the still waters, with their wings and tails 



expanded At such times, when we approach them, thej^ drop off the limbs 



into the water, as if dead, and for a minute or two are not to be seen ; when on a sudden, 

 at a great distance, their long slender head and neck appear like a snake rising erect out 

 of the water ; and no part of them is to be seen when swimming, except sometimes the 

 tip end of their tail. 



" In the heat of the day, they arc seen in great numbers sailing A'ery high in the air, 

 over lakes and rivers. I doubt not but if this bird had been an inhabitant of the Tiber, 

 in Ovid's days, it would have furnished him with a subject for some beautiful and enter- 

 taining metamorphoses. I believe they feed entirely on fish, for their flesh tastes and 

 smells intolerably strong of it ; it is scarcely to be eaten unless one is constrained by 

 insufferable hunger." 



