248 
SNAKE-BIRD. 
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 intolera- 
bly strong of it : it is scarcely to be eaten, unless one is constrain- 
ed by insufferable hunger. They inhabit tbe waters of Cape Fear 
river, and, soutberly. East and West Florida.* 
* Bartram’s Travels, p. 132.— MS. in the possession of the author. 
