DARTER. 451 



2 - BLACK-BELLIED DARTER. 



Plotus melanogaster, Ind. Orn. ii. 895. Gm. Lin. i. 5S0. Am. O'rn.ix. 79. pi. 74. 



f. 1, 2. Lin. Trans, xiii. p. 198. 330. 

 Anhinga melanogaster, Zool. Indie, p. 22. t. 12. 



de Cayenne, PI. enl. 959. 



Black-bellied Anhinga, Ind. Zool. 4to. p. 53. pi. 15. Nat. Misc. pi. 373. Perni. 



Hindoost. ii. ICO. 

 Black-bellied Darter, Gen. Syn. vi. C24. 



SIZE of the Common Duck, but the neck extremely long ; the 

 bill straight, long, and sharp-pointed; above pale blue; beneath 

 reddish; eyes very piercing; head, neck, and upper part of the 

 breast, light brown ; each side of the head, and upper parts of the 

 neck, marked with a broad white line ; crop very large ; back, 

 scapulars, and wing coverts, marked lengthwise in equal portions 

 with stripes of black and white; quills, belly, thighs, and tail, deep 

 black; the last remarkably long and slender, and when spread out 

 appears greatly rounded ; the two middle feathers undulated twenty 

 or thirty times, and some of the longer scapulars have the same 

 appearance; legs as in the other. 



Inhabits the Islands of Ceylon and Java, where it sits on the 

 shrubs that hang over the water; and in a country where every idea 

 is filled with serpents, often terrifies the passengers by shooting out 

 its long slender neck, which in their first surprize they take for the 

 darting of some fatal reptile ; common also on the coast of Coro- 

 inandel, as we find it well represented among the drawings of Sir 

 J. Anstruther, and others. In some specimens the chin, throat, and 

 fore part of the neck, are white, in others the white is spotted with 

 black ; but independent of this, the plumage is much the same. 

 Whether this distinction may arise from difference of sex, is quite 

 uncertain. — In the above drawings the neck seems to be composed 

 of five or six angles, giving an undulated appearance at the back 

 part; and it is said, that the bird, when alive, carries the neck after 

 this fashion. By some it is called Bauber, and by others Lug Lug. 

 In Sumatra, Danding Ayer. 



M M M 2 



