100 DARTER, OR SNAKE-FIRD. 
darkest in the centre; the tertials are fully longer than the 
primaries, the latter brownish black, the shafts and edges of 
some of the middle ones, white ; secondaries and greater coverts, 
slightly tipt with white; the legs are of a pale flesh colour; 
toes bordered with a narrow edge ; claws and ends of the toes, 
black ; the tail is even, a very little longer than the wings, and 
of a blackish olive colour, with the exception of the two ex- 
terior feathers, which are whitish ; but generally the two middle 
ones only are seen. 
The female differs in having no black on the forehead, lores, 
or breast, those parts being pale olive. 
DARTER, OR SNAKE-BIRD.* (Plotus anhinga.) 
PLATE LXXIV.—Fic. 1, Mazz. 
Plotus anhinga, Linn. Syst. ed. 12, tom. i. p. 218.—Gmel. Syst. i. p. 580, 1.— 
Ind. Orn. p. 895, 1.—Plotus melanogaster, Id. p. 896, var. B, var. 0.—An- 
hinga Brasiliensis Tupinamb. Marcgrav. Hist. Nat. Bras. p. 218.—L’Anhinga, 
Briss. vi. p. 476.—Salerne, p. 375.—Buff. Ois. viii. p. 448.—Anhinga Noir de 
Cayenne, Pl. enl. 960.—W hite-bellied Darter, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. p. 622, 1. 
—Black-bellied Darter, Jd. p. 624, var. a, pl. 106.—Jd. p. 625, var. B.— 
Colymbus colubrinus, Snake-bird, Bartram, p. 132, 295.—Peale’s Museum, 
No. 3188, male. 
PLOTUS ANHINGA.—LwNEzvs.+ 
Plotus anhinga, Bonap. Synop. p. 411.—Plotus melanogaster, Ord, 1st edit. of 
Supp. p. 79. 
Heap, neck, whole body, above and below, of a deep shining 
black, with a green gloss, the plumage extremely soft and 
* Named in the plate, black-bellied darter. 
+ This very curious genus contains only two known species—that of 
our author, common to both continents of America, and the Plotus 
Vaillantei of Temminck, a native of India, Africa, and the South Seas, 
It has been placed among the Pelicanide by most ornithologists ; but 
how far all the forms which are at present included in that family have 
a right to be there, I am not at present prepared to determine: if they 
are, that of Plotus will hold a very intermediate rank, particularly in 
habits which may lead to some discoveries in the relations to each other. 
The economy is ina considerable measure arboreal, and in their own family, 
as now constituted, they show the greatest development of the power 

