THE SNAKE BIRD. 201 



color, the tail is very long, of a deep black, and tipped 

 with a silvery white, and when spread, represents an 

 unfurled fan. They delight to sit in little peaceable 

 communities, on the dry limbs of trees, hanging over 

 the still waters, with their wings and tails expanded, I 

 suppose to cool and air themselves when at the same 

 time they behold their images in the watery mirror. 

 At such times, when we approach them, they drop 

 off the limbs into the water as if dead, and for a min- 

 ute or two are not to be seen ; when, on a sudden, at a 

 vast distance, their long, slender head and neck only 

 appear and have very much the appearance of a snake 

 and no other part of them is to be seen when swim- 

 ming in the water, except sometimes the tip end of 

 their tail. In the heat of the day they are 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 in Ovid's days, it would have furnished 

 him with a subject for some beautiful and entertain- 

 ing metamorphoses. I believe it feeds entirely on 

 fish, for its flesh smells and tastes intolerably strong 

 of it ; it is scarcely to be eaten unless constrained by 

 insufferable hunger."* 



Turning one of the many bends of the river a low, 

 flat tract of land comes into view, stretching miles 

 away to the left. It is covered with a species of saw 



*Loc.cit., p. 130. 



