CEYLON WATER BIRDS. 295 
Length 20; wing 7°5; tail 5°50; tarsus 1°3; bill from 
gape 2°2. 
Distribution —Common all over the low-country wherever 
there are tanks or marshes. Found throughout India and 
Burma, the range extending eastward through Malaya to the 
Dutch East Indies. 
Habits ——The birds scatter during the day, but sometimes 
on large tanks unite in huge parties which form across the 
water and drive the fish before them. They roost and breed 
in big colonies on low trees. They breed chiefly during the 
rains of the north-east monsoon, but in favourable localities 
several broods are reared. The eggs are three to five in 
number, and measure about 1°75 by 1°15. 
Sub-family Plotine. 
Genus Plotus. 
Darters. 
The Darters are a tropical genus, differing from the Cormo- 
rants in having a long straight pointed bill with no nasal 
grooves. The head and neck are very slender, the latter 
being long and with a bend in the vertebre, like the neck of a 
Heron. There is no naked pouch under the chin. Only one 
species occurs in Ceylon. 
PLOTUS MELANOGASTER (Blanford, Vol. IV., p. 344; 
Legge, p. 1194). 
The Indian Darter, or Snake Bird. 
Description.—General colour glossy black ; head and hind- 
neck blackish-brown with paler edges to the feathers ; a fine 
white streak above the eye ; the feathers of the upper back 
with brown edges ; conspicuous silvery white shaft-streaks 
on the scapulars, wing coverts, and tertiaries ; the innermost 
_ tertiary and the four central tail feathers have the outer web 
corrugated. The face, throat, and upper part of the fore-neck 
white, a white stripe extending from the bill above the gape 
for some way down the side of the neck. 
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