730 
SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. — STEGANOPODES. 
but dive for and pursue under water like cormorants and loons. The eggs are three or four, 
pale bluish, with white chalky incrustation. There are only three or four species : the 
African P. levaillanti ; the P. melanogaster of Southern Asia, with the Australian P. nova- 
hollandicB, if distinct from the last; with the following: 
304. PLO'TUS. (Grr. nXaros, plotos^ swimming well.) Darters. Character as above. 
760. P. anhin'ga. (Portuguese anhina, Lat. anguina, snaky.) Darter. Anhinga. Snake- 
bird. Water-turkey. $ : Glossy greenish -black ; a broad silver gray wing-band formed 
by most of the coverts ; lower neck behind spotted, and scapulars and tertiaries striped 
with silvery-gray; tail pale-tipped; filamentous feathers of neck purplish-ash. 9: with 
parts of the head, neck, and back brown, the juguium and breast fawn-color sharply 
margined Mdth rich brown. Bill yellow, dusky-greenish on the ridge and tip ; sac orange ; 
eye-space livid ; eye carmine ; feet dusky and yellow. Length about 36.00 ; extent nearly 
4.00 feet ; wing 13.00-14.00 ; tail 10.00-11.00 ; bill 3.25 along culmen; tarsus 1.33. S. Atlantic 
and Gulf States, common ; in summer to North Carolina, and up the Mississippi to Illinois and 
Kansas ; New Mexico. Nest bulky, placed on trees and bushes over the water, of sticks, 
leaves, roots, moss, etc. ; eggs 3-4, like cormorant eggs in color and texture, but narrow and 
elongate, 2.60 X 1-25. Young with bulf-colored or white woolly down. Fed in the nest 
by regurgitation, like cormorants. 
57. Family TACHYPETID^ : 
Fig. 507. — Frigate, with Tropic Bird in the distance. (From Michelet.) 
Frigates. 
Bill longer than the head, 
epignathous, stout, straight, 
wider than high at the base, 
thence gradually compressed 
to the strongly hooked extrem- 
ity, where the under as well as 
ujiper mandible is decurved. 
Nostrils very small, linear, 
almost entirely closed, in a 
long narrow groove. Gular 
sac smaU, but capable of con- 
siderable distension. Wings 
exceedingly long and pointed, 
of about 34 remiges, of which 
the 10 primaries are very pow- 
erful, with stout quadranguhir 
shafts; upper and middle por- 
tion of the wings greatly 
lengthened. Tail very long, 
deeply forked, of 12 strong 
feathers. Feet exceedingly 
small, the tarsus, in particu- 
lar, extraordinarily short, feath- 
ered ; webbing restricted, that 
between inner and next toe 
very slight; middle claw pec- 
tinate. Bulk of body slight 
compared with the great length 
of the wings and tail. Here 
only in this order is found the 
