304. 
760. 
730 SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. — STEGANOPODES. 
but dive for and pursue under water like is and loons. The eggs are three or four, 
pale bluish, with white chalky incrustation. There are only three or four species: the 
African P. levaillanti ; the P. melanogaster of Southern Asia, with the Australian P. nova- 
hollandia, if distinct from the last; with the following: 
PLO/TUS. (Gr. md@ros, plotos, swimming well.) Darters. Character as above. 
P. anhin’ga, (Portuguese aniina, Lat. anguina, snaky.) DARTER. ANHINGA. SNAKE- 
BIRD. WATER-TURKEY. ¢@: Glossy greenish-black; a broad silver gray wing-band formed 
by most of the coverts; lower neck behind spotted, and scapulars and tertiaries striped 
with silvery-gray; tail pale-tipped; filamentous feathers of neck purplish-ash. 9: with 
parts of the head, neck, and back brown, the jugulum and breast fawn-color sharply 
margined with rich brown. Bill yellow, dusky-greenish on the ridge and tip; sae orange ; 
eye-space livid; eye carmine; feet dusky and yellow. Length about 36.00; extent nearly 
4.00 feet ; wing 13.00-14.00 ; tail 10.00-11.00; bill 8.25 along culmen; tarsus 1.38. 8. Atlantie 
and Gulf States, common; in summer to North Carolina, and up the Mississippi to Illinois and 
Kansas ; New Mexico. Nest bulky, placed on trees and bushes over the water, of sticks, 
leaves, roots, moss, ete. ; eggs 38-4, like cormorant eggs in color and texture, but narrow and 
elongate, 2.60 K 1.25. Young with buff-colored or white woolly down. Fed in the nest 
by regurgitation, like cormorauts. 
57. Family TACHYPETIDZ:: Frigates. 
Bill longer than the head, 
epignathous, stout, straight, 
wider than high at the base, 
thence gradually compressed 
to the strongly hooked extrem- 
ity, where the under as well as 
upper mandible is decurved. 
Nostrils very small, linear, 
almost entirely closed, in a 
long narrow groove. Gular 
sac small, but capable of con- 
siderable distension. Wings 
exceedingly long and pointed, 
of about 34 remiges, of which 
the 10 primaries are very pow- 
erful, with stout quadrangular 
shafts; upper and middle por- 
tion of the wings greatly 
lengthened. Tail very long, 
deeply forked, of 12 strong 
feathers. Feet exceedingly 
small, the tarsus, in particu- 
lar, extraordinarily short, feath- 
ered; webbing restricted, that 
between inner and next toe 
very slight; middle claw pec- 
tinate. Bulk of body slight 
compared with the great length 
of the wings and tail. Here 
only in this order is found the 
Fic. 507. — Frigate, with Tropic Bird in the distance. (From Michelet.) 
