BLACK-BELLIED DARTER. 



81 



My excellent friend, Mr. William Bartram, gives the follow- 

 ing account of the subject of our history : 



" Here is in tliis river,^ and in the waters all over Florida, a 

 very curious and handsome bird, the people call them Snake-birds; 

 I think I have seen paintings of them on the Chinese screens and 

 other Indian pictures ; they seem to be a species of Colymbus, but 

 far more beautiful and delicately formed than any other that I 

 have ever seen. They delight to sit in little peaceable communi- 

 ties, on the dry limbs of trees, hanging over the still waters, with 

 their wings and tails expanded, I suppose to cool and air them- 

 selves, 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 minute or two 

 are not to be seen ; when on a sudden, at a great distance, their 

 long slender head and neck appear, like a snake rising erect out 

 of the water; and no other part of them is to be seen when 

 swimming, 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 entertaining metamorphoses. I believe 

 they feed entirely on fish, for their flesh smells and tastes intole- 

 rably strong of it : it is scarcely to be eaten, unless one is con- 

 strained by insufferable hunger. They inhabit the waters of Cape 

 Fear river, and, southerly. East and West Florida.^' ^ 



* The river St. Juan, East Florida. 



\ Bartram's Travels, p. 132.— MS. in the possession of the editor. 



VOL. IX. 



X 



