288 
ORDERS OF BIRDS— FULLY-WEBBED SWIMMERS 
some bird is usually made known by the dead 
body of a cagemate that has been foully mur- 
dered. 
In its home, the habits of the Snake-Bird 
interested me greatly. Almost invariably it 
perches on a dead tree, or a branch which over- 
hangs water, preferably a small running stream. 
Its neighbors are the two white egrets, the 
Louisiana and little blue herons, and an occa- 
sional black vulture. Seldom indeed is one 
of these birds found swimming in the water, 
but Mr. C. E. Jackson once very dexterously 
speared one from his boat, as it was diving under 
him. 
When your boat approaches a Snake-Bird 
and crosses his danger-line, the bird slides off its 
perch, falls straight down, and sinks out of 
sight. It goes down head erect, and “all stand- 
ing,” as if weighted with a bag of shot. This 
is the queerest of all bird ways in diving. If 
you halt, and watch sharply for the bird to 
reappear at the surface, for three or four minutes 
you will see nothing. 
At the end of a long wait you will notice a 
sharp-pointed stick, half as long as an adult 
lead-pencil, sticking up out of the water. It 
looks so queer you watch it sharply. Presently 
you see the point of it turn a few degrees; and 
then you discover a beady black eye watching 
you. It is one of the neatest hiding-tricks 
practised by any water-bird I know. 
The Snake-Bird has the power to submerge 
its body at any depth it chooses, and remain 
for any reasonable length of time. It is a very 
expert diver, and the manner in which it can 
pursue and capture live fish under water is 
enough to strike terror to the hearts of finny 
folk. The bird swims with a sharp kink in 
its neck, driving forward by powerful strokes 
of its cup-shaped feet. On overtaking a fish, 
the kink in its neck flies straight, and like the 
stab of a swift dagger the finny victim is trans- 
fixed. Then the bird rises to the surface, — 
for it is unable to swallow its food under water, — - 
tosses the fish into the air, catches it head first, 
and in an instant it is gone. 
In the United States this bird is most at 
home in the rivers and creeks of southern and 
central Florida, but it is also found farther 
west, along the Gulf. It is abundant in the 
delta of the Orinoco, in the Guianas, and far- 
ther south. It lives well in captivity, and when 
provided with a large glass tank is quite willing 
to give daily exhibitions in diving after live 
fish. In color the adult male is a glossy black 
bird, and so is the female, except that her 
entire neck is light brown. 
THE GANNET FAMILY. 
Sulidae 
The Common Gannet 1 is, in many respects, 
a bird of very striking appearance. It is a 
goose-like bird, as large as a medium-sized 
goose, and its prevailing colors are white and a 
very beautiful ecru. Its plumage is as smooth 
and immaculate as the surface of a wooden 
decoy; it has a slow and solemn manner, and 
has the least suspicion of man of any swimming- 
bird I know. Its head, neck and bill are mas- 
sive, the latter especiallly being long and very 
thick at the base. The total length of this bird 
when adult is only a trifle under three feet. 
Although the Common Gannet is strictly a 
bird of the ocean coasts, and apparently never 
is seen inland, it is a bird of such striking 
personality it well deserves to be introduced 
in these pages. Any large bird which once 
existed in countless thousands on our coast, and 
has not yet been exterminated, may well be 
known to every intelligent American. 
Although the Gannet wanders as far south as 
Long Island, its real home is where it breeds. 
“While there are many points along the coast 
from Maine to Labrador where the Gannets 
might breed, they are found, so far as I have 
been able to ascertain, only at three places, an 
island in the Bay of Fundy, the Bird Rocks 
near the geographical centre of the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, and Bonaventure Island, at Perce, 
Canada, the colony at Mingan being too small 
and too nearly exterminated to be taken into con- 
sideration.” (Frederic A. Lucas.) 
In 1860, Dr. Bryant estimated the total num- 
ber of Gannets on the Bird Rocks at 150,000. 
In 1872, Mr. William Brewster estimated the 
number then living there at 50,000. 
In 1887, Mr. Lucas found not a single Gannet 
nesting on Little Bird Rock, and not over 10,000 
on Great Rock. 
Although the Gannets, and other sea-birds, 
make their homes on the most inaccessible 
1 Su'la bas-sa'na. 
