80 BLACK-BELLIED DARTER. 



coverts marked on every feather with an oval, or spade-shaped 

 spot of white; greater coverts nearly all of a limy white; the tail 

 is long, rounding, and exceedingly stiff, consisting of twelve broad 

 feathers, the exterior vanes of the fom^ middle ones curiously crimp- 

 ed, the whole black, and broadly tipt with dirty brownish white; 

 the thighs are black; legs scarcely an inch and a half long; feet 

 webbed, all the four toes united by the membrane, which is of 

 uncommon breadth, and must give the bird great velocity when 

 diving or swimming ; the exterior toe, which is the longest, is 

 three inches long ; claws horn color, strong and crooked, inner 

 side of the middle one pectinated; legs and feet yellow. The 

 whole plumage is of extraordinary stiffness and elasticity; that of 

 the neck and breast thick, soft and shining. The position of these 

 birds when standing is like that of the Gannets. 



Of this extraordinary species we can give little more than ac- 

 curate descriptions, and tolerably good portraits, which were taken 

 from two fine specimens, admirably set up and preserved in the 

 Museum of Mr. Peale. The Snake-bird is an inhabitant of the 

 Carolinas, Georgia and the Floridas ; and is common in Brasil, 

 Cayenne, Senegal, Ceylon and Java. It seems to have derived its 

 name from the singular form of its head and neck, which at a dis- 

 tance very much resemble some species of serpents. In those 

 countries where noxious animals abound, we may readily conceive 

 that the appearance of this bird, extending its long neck through 

 the foliage of a tree, would tend to startle the wary traveller, 

 whose imagination had portrayed objects of danger lurking in 

 every thicket. It is said to build its nest on a tree ; but of its 

 habits during the season of incubation, the number and color of 

 its eggs, or the rearing of its young, we are ignorant. Formerly 

 the Darter was considered by voyagers as an anomalous produc- 

 tion, a monster partaking of the nature of the Snake and the Duck; 

 and in some ancient charts which we have seen, it is delineated in 

 all the extravagance of fiction. 



