88o 



SK YLA RK— SNAKE-BIRD 



muscle. Additional Splint bones, the os opercxdare and os comple- 

 mentare, rest on the median side of the lower jaw, filling the gap 

 between the Dentary and Angular, and between the Supra-angular 

 and Articular. 



SKYLARK. Alauda arvensis, see Lark, pages 507-509. 



SLANGENVREETER or SLANGVRETER (Snake-eater), the 

 Dutch name, adopted by many English residents in the Cape Colony, 

 for the Secretary-bird (Layard, B. S. Afr. p. 33). 



SLIGHT-FALCON (Germ, sddicht, plain, simple or homely), a 

 name once in common use (Sebright, Observations on Hawking, pp. 3, 

 33) for what is now called the Peregrine Falcon. Schlegel (Traite de 

 Fauconnerie, p. 26) has pointed out the mistake of deriving it from 

 the German Schlacht or schlect. 



SMEW, the commonly-accepted name for the smallest of the 

 Mergansers, M. alhellus (p. 544), though not unfrequently applied 

 in this country to some other Anatidx as the WiGEON and 

 Pochard ; but then generally in the form of SMEE-DUCK (cf. 

 Dutch Smiente = '\Yigeon) or SMETHE, while in America one or 

 other of these variants is locally used for the Pintail (Trumbull, 

 Names and Fortr. B. p. 38). Originally it would seem to have been 

 used for the female (Willughby, Orn. Engl. Ed. p. 337) of the 

 species to which it is now ordinarily applied, while the male was 

 the Nun. 



SNAIL -EATER, an absurd name given to a species of 

 Anastomus (Open-bill). 



SNAITH or SNYTH, Orcadian for Coot. 



SNAKE-BIRD, in many parts of England a name for the 

 Wryneck, from the hissing noise it utters while in its nest ; but 

 applied to a very different kind of bird by the English in North 

 America, because of its " long- slender head and neck," which, its 

 body being submerged as it swims, " appear like a snake rising 

 erect out of the water " (Bartram's MS., quoted by Ord in Wilson's 

 Am. Ornithology, ix. p. 81). It is the "Darter" of many authors, 

 the Plotus anhinga ^ of ornitholog}', and is the type of a small but 

 very well-marked Family of Birds, Plotidm, belonging to the group 

 Steganopodes, and consisting of but a single genus and three or 

 four species. They bear a general resemblance both outwardly 

 and in habits to Cormorants, but are much more slender in form, 

 and have both neck and tail much elongated. The bill also, 

 instead of being tipped with a maxillary hook, has its edges beset 

 with serratures directed backwards, and is sharply pointed, — in 



^ "Anhinga," according to Marcgrave, who first described this bird {Hist. 

 Ear. Nat. Brasil, p. 218), was the name it bore among the natives. 



