880 : SK VLARK—SNAKE-BIRD 
muscle. Additional Splint bones, the os operculare 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. schlicht, 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 (Zraité 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, JV. albellus (p. 544), though not unfrequently applied 
in this country to some other Anatide as the .WIGEON and 
PocHarD; but then generally in the form of SMEE-DUCK (¢f. 
Dutch Smiente= Wigeon) or SMETHE, while in America one or 
other of these variants is locally used for the PryTatn (Trumbull, 
Names and Portr. B. . 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 Coor. 
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 ornithology, and is the type of a small but 
very well-marked Family of Birds, Plotidz, 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 
’ 
1 “ Anhinga,” according to Marcgrave, who first described this bird (Z/ts¢, 
her, Nat. Brasil. p. 218), was the name it bore among the natives, 
