253 



PELECANID^E. 



PELECANID^E. 



254 



Mediterranean, if JI. Temminck be right in considering P. Demareatii 

 and P. criitatus identical. 



Plotut (Linn., Klein). Bill longer than the head, quite straight, 

 firm though slender, obliquely dentilated on the edges, which are bent 

 inwards, and terminating in a very sharp point ; face and throat 

 naked ; nostrils linear. Feet short and robust. Wings short ; second, 

 third, and fourth quills longest ; tail very long, the feathers stiff and 

 elastic. 



This is the genus Anhinya, of Brisson; Plottut of Scopoli; and 

 Ptinx of Mcehr. 



Species of Plolui, or Darter, as it has been called by English and 

 American ornithologists, are found in the Old and New Continents. 



These extraordinary birds are well described by Buffon when he 

 says, '" the Anhinga offers us a reptile grafted on the body of a bird." 

 Those who have seen the long neck, and that only, issuing from the 

 water, twisting about among the herbage and among the foliage, say 

 that a casual observer might well take it for a snake. Vaillant states 

 that the neck of the species seen by him in Africa was always in oscil- 

 lation when the bird was perched ; and that any one who saw its 

 tortuous movements among the foliage, the body being concealed, 

 would take it for one of the tree-serpents. The form indeed was con- 

 sidered by the older voyagers as a monster partaking of the nature of 

 the snake and the duck; and Wilson states that in some ancient charts 

 which he had seen, the creature was delineated with all the extrava- 

 gance of fiction. In flight the neck is stretched out) immoveable, in 

 a line with the body. 



P. Leeaillantii (P. Africamu of Swainsou). Nuptial Plumage. 

 Bill yellow ; feet yjllow ; all the upper part of the head and back of 

 the head brick-red, bordered with a riband of black which descends to 

 the shoulders ; forehead, cheeks, and sides of the neck pure white ; 

 throat and anterior part of the neck pale ochraceous-yellow ; breast 

 and all the under parts of the body deep black with greenish reflections ; 

 the lower part of the neck above the back reddish and ocellated with 

 white; the whole of the mantle and the small coverts brown, with 

 the middle of each feather of a bright rusty colour ; tail-feathers and 

 quills brown, some of the latter terminated with rust-colour. 



flatus Lecaillanlii. 



Le Vaillant, in his usual lively style, relates how he was induced to 

 visit a rich proprietor in the fertile canton of the Twenty-Four 

 Kivers to the north-east of Swartland, South Africa, after he had 

 determined on not stopping, by the tempting description of two 

 extraordinary birds which habitually haunted the vicinity of this 

 propietor*s habitation, and which, from the description, he knew must 

 be Anbingaa. They frequented a particular tree, and baffled him 

 more than once ; at length he got within shot, and killed them both, 

 right and left. His Hottentot* called them Slange-Hals-Voogel (Bird 

 with a Serpent's Neck). He describes them as diving ("entre deux 

 eaux ") for fish : when they caught a small one it was swallowed 

 whole ; when they captured a large one it was carried to a rock or the 

 trunk of a tree, and the bird, fixing it beneath its feet, picked it to 

 pieces with its bill. Though the water is their favourite element, it is 

 upon tre8 or rocks, ho tells \\t>, that it establishes its neat and brings 

 up its young, taking care to place it so that they may be easily pre- 

 cipitated into the river as soon as they are able to swim, or whenever 

 the safety of the little family requires it. He describes it as most 

 difficult of approach, especially when swimming, and when nothing 

 but the head is to be seen ; the instant the flint struck the steel the 

 bird dived, and often when it was looked for a-head it had doubled 



back in its diving, and then took wing far behind the sportsman. It 

 is found in Senega], Cape of Good Hope, and part of the coasts of 

 Asia. (Lesson.) 



P. Anhinga (P. Amcricanus, Sowerby). Male. Bill 35 inches long, 

 rather slender, very sharp pointed, and armed with numerous sharp 

 teeth towards the tip, for the securing its prey ; black above, yellow 

 below ; bare space round the eye and pouch under the chin yellow ; 

 slit of the mouth extending beyond the eyes ; irides vivid red ; head, 

 neck, and all the lower parts black glossed with dark green ; side of 

 the neck, from the eye backwards for more than half its length, 

 marked by a strip of brownish-white, consisting of long hair-like tufts 

 of plumage extending an inch beyond the common surface, resembling 

 the hair of callow young ; a few small tufts on the crown ; the whole 

 uppgr parts black, marked in a very singular and beautiful manner 

 with small oval spots and long pointed streaks of limy-white which 

 has the gloss of silver in some lights ; middle of the back, primaries, 





Flo/in Anhinga, female. ' (Wilson). 



secondaries, rump, and tall-coverts, plain glossy black ; on the upper 

 part of the back the white is in very small oval spots lengthening as 

 they approach the scapulars and tertials, on the latter they extend 

 the whole length of the feathers, running down the centre (these are 

 black shafted) ; the wings long and pointed ; lesser coverts marked on 

 every feather with an oval or spade-shaped spot of white ; greater 

 coverts nearly all of a limy-white ; tail long, rounded, and exceedingly 

 stiff, .consisting of 12 broad feathers, the exterior vanes of the four 

 middle ones curiously crimped, the whole black and broadly tipped 

 with dirty brownish-white; thighs black; legs scarcely an inch and a 



