AMERICAN ANHINGA. 
159 
when the bird swallowed three others of somewhat smaller size. At another 
time, we placed before it a number of fishes about seven and a half inches 
long, of which it swallowed nine in succession. It would devour at a meal 
forty or more fishes about three inches and a half long. On several occasions 
it was fed on Plaice, when it swallowed some that were four inches broad, 
extending its throat, and compressing them during their descent into the 
stomach. It did not appear to relish eels, as it eat all the other sorts first, 
and kept them to the last ; and after having swallowed them, it had great 
difficulty in keeping them down, but, although for awhile thwarted, it would 
renew its efforts, and at length master them. When taken to the tide-pOnd 
at the foot of my friend’s garden, it would now and then after diving return 
to the surface of the water with a cray-fish in its mouth, which it pressed 
hard and dashed about in its bill, evidently for the purpose of maiming it, 
before it would attempt to swallow it, and it never caught a fish without 
bringing it up to subject it to the same operation. 
While residing near Bayou Sara, in the State of Mississippi, I was in the 
habit of occasionally visiting some acquaintances residing at Pointe Coupd, 
nearly opposite the mouth of the bayou. One day, on entering the house of 
an humble settler close on the western bank of the Mississippi, I observed 
two young Anhingas that had been taken out of a nest containing four, which 
had been built on a high cypress in a lake on the eastern side of the river. 
They were perfectly tame and gentle, and much attached to their foster- 
parents, the man and woman of the house, whom they followed wherever 
they went. They fed with equal willingness on shrimps and fish, and when 
neither could be hgd, contented themselves with boiled Indian corn, of which 
they caught with great ease the grains as they were thrown one by one to 
them. I was afterwards informed, that when a year old, they were allowed 
. to go to the river and fish for themselves, or to the ponds on either side, and 
that they regularly returned towards night for the purpose of roosting on the 
top of the house. Both birds were males, and in time they fought hard 
battles, but at last each met with a female, which it enticed to the roost on 
the house-top, where all the four slept at night for awhile. Soon after, the 
females having probably laid their eggs in the woods, they all disappeared, 
and were never again seen by the persons who related this curious affair. 
The Anhinga moves along the branches of trees rather awkwardly; but 
still it walks there, with the aid of its wings, which it extends for that 
purpose, and not unfrequently also using its bill in the manner of a Parrot. 
On the land, it walks and even runs with considerable ease, certainly with 
more expertness than the Cormorant, though much in the same style. But 
it does not employ its tail to aid it, for, on the contrary, it carries that organ 
inclined upwards, and during its progress from one place to another, the 
