The American Darter. '63 



faviilv—rr.OTID.-E. 



The American Darter. 



Plohis an/iinga, MarcgraVE. 



SOME forty-six years ago (in 1851) a male specimen of the American Darter 

 was captured in the month of June, near Poole, in the count}^ of Dorsetshire. 



In general colour the Darter is black, flushed with green, with a narrow line 

 of white hair-like feathers along each side of the neck ; the wing-coverts, and the 

 elongated scapulars conspicuously marked with white. The female is similar, but 

 less bright, and has the head, neck, and breast buff, with a narrow chestnut band 

 below. A most interesting point in the anatoni}' of the bird's neck has been 

 described b}^ the late Mr. W. A. Forbes — a veiy talented ornithologist, whose 

 accomplished work, when he died at the age of onl}^ twentj'-eight, gave the 

 brightest promise for a brilliant future. Some of the vertebra of the neck are so 

 placed, in relation to the others, as to form a " kink," while the neck muscles are 

 so disposed as to give the bird the power to dart forward its head, with great 

 ease and swiftness, after the fishes which form its pre}-. 



The Darter is to be sought for — though it is another thing to catch it, — along 

 the wooded banks of rivers, and b}- tree-studded swamps and marshes, or in just 

 such haunts as are frequented bj- Herons. It is a night feeder, and during the da}" 

 it sits on a stone or stump, either sleepily resting in the sun, or standing 

 erect with expanded wings. 



It gets its name of Snake-bird from its habit of swimming with its bod}- 

 quite under water, and its head and neck, alone above the surface, jerking back- 

 wards and forwards rhythmically, with the swift progress of its body, till it comes 

 near enough to its prey, when the head and neck suddenly disappear, (darted out 

 by the curious mechanism above described), to reappear in a few moments with a 

 fish transfixed on its spear-like beak. Its diving and subaqueous s\nmming powers 

 are probably unexcelled by any other water-bird. 



The Darter builds, either alone or in companies, in trees, on a branch a few 

 feet above the water, a nest of sticks and grass or moss, in which it lays three 

 or four eggs. These appear to be white, from an external chalky layer overlying a 

 greenish-blue shell. The voung are hatched helpless, and covered •R-ith do\^-n. 



