1P,2 SNAKE-BIRD. 



seen in great numbers, sailing very high in the air, over lakes and 

 rivers. 



" I doubt not but if this bird had been an inhabitant of the Tiber ir, 

 Ovid's days, it would have furnished him with a subject for some beauti- 

 ful and entertaining metamorphoses. I believe they feed entirely on 

 fish, for their flesh smells and tastes intolerably strong of it : it is 

 scarcely to be eaten, unless one is constrained by insufiFerable hunger. 

 They inhabit the waters of Cape Fear river, and, southerly, East and 

 West Florida."* 



PLOTUS ANHINGA. 



DARTER, OR SNAKE-BIRD. 



[Plate LXXIV. Fig. 2, Female.] 

 Aniiinija de Cayenne, PI. Enl. '.).59. 



The Female Darter measures three feet five inches in length ; and 

 differs in having the neck before of a roan color or iron gray, the breast 

 the same, but lighter and tinged with pale chestnut ; the belly as in the 

 male; where the iron gray joins the black on the holly, there is a nar- 

 row band of chestnut ; upper head, and back of the neck, dark sooty 

 brown, streaked with blackish; cheeks and chin pale yellow ochre; in 

 every other respect the same as the male, except in having only a few 

 slight tufts of hair along the side of the neck ; the tail is twelve inches 

 long to its insertion, generally spread out like a fan, and crimped like 

 the other on the outer vanes of the middle feathers only. 



The above is a description of the supposed female Darter, which was 

 preserved in Peale's Museum ; Wilson's figure was taken from this 

 specimen. It was contrary to his practice to make his drawings from 

 stuffed birds, but as he had never had an opportunity of beholding this 

 species in a living or recent state, he was compelled, in this instance, to 

 resort to the museum. 



The author having written to Mr. John Abbot, of Georgia, relative 

 to this species, and some others, received from this distinguished natu- 

 ralist a valuable communication, from which the following extract is 

 made : '' Both the Darters I esteem as but one species. I have now by 

 me a drawing of the male, or Black-bellied, only ; but have had speci- 



* Bartram's Travels, p. 132. — MS. in the possession of the author. [From Mr. 

 Ord'a Supplementary Volume.] 



