Genus— ANHING A. 
Anhinga Brisson, Ornith., Vol. VI., p. 476, 1760 . . Type A. anhinga. 
Plotus Linne, Syst. Nat., 12th ed., p. 218, 1766 . . . . Type A. anhinga, 
Plottus Scopoli, Introd. Hist. Nat., p. 474, 1777 . . . . Type A. anhinga. 
Large slender birds with very long necks, long thin pointed bills, long wings, 
long stiff tail, short legs and long toes, toti-pahnate. 
The biU is very long and thin, straight and pointed, longer than the 
head and more than one and a half times the length of the metatarsus, 
compressed laterally and the edges of both mandibles are finely serrated. 
The loreal space is naked and there is a small gular pouch ; the nostrils 
obsolete in an ill-defined groove. 
The neck is very long and the body slender. 
The wings are long, the second and third primaries sub-equal and longest, 
the first shorter than the fourth. 
The tail is very long, composed of twelve broad stiff feathers, fairly 
evenly rounded, the outside feather rather short. The legs are very stout and 
short ; the metatarsus is less than one-fourth the length of the tail, coarsely 
reticulate on the front and sides but minutely reticulate on the back. 
The toes are long, the middle almost as long as the outer one, hind toe 
connected with others by a web : all the toes therefore are fuUy webbed. The 
outer toe is little longer than the middle one, and is about one and a half times 
the length of the metatarsus ; the middle-claw is finely pectinate. 
An extraordinary feature is the wrinkling of the two centre tail-feathers 
and the longest secondaries. 
The Darters, though superficially unlike, have been shown \^o be 
specialised Cormorants, and show the closest relationship of any of the 
toti-palmate group. 
The family Anhingidm covers the genus Anhinga only, which consists 
of at least five species distributed in an extraordinary manner. The genus is 
better known by the name of Plotus, but the decision of the International 
Commission on Nomenclature having legahsed the Brissonian genera, the 
name Anhinga must be used. For Linne’ s genus Plotus was simply a 
re-naming of Brisson’s genus Anhinga, and the bird was unknown to Linne 
save from Brisson’s description. 
VOL. IV. 
193 
