204 
DARTER, OR SNAKE-BIRD, 
down the shoulders, increasing in size according to the size of 
the feathers, and running down the scapulars ; wings and tail 
of a shining black, the latter broadly tipt with dirty white ; the 
lesser coverts are glossed with green, and are spotted with 
ashy white ; the last row of the lesser coverts, and the coverts 
of the secondaries, are chiefly ashy white, which forms a large 
bar across the wing ; the outer web of the large scapulars is 
crimped ; tail, rounded, the two under feathers the shortest, 
the two upper feathers, for the greater part of their length, 
beautifully crimped on their outer webs, the two next feathers 
in a slight degree so ; bill, dusky at the base and above ; the 
upper mandible brownish yellow at the sides, the lower man- 
dible yellow ochre ; inside of the mouth, dusky ; irides, dark 
crimson ; the orbit of the eye, next to the plumage of the head, 
is of a greenish blue colour, this passes round, in the form of 
a zigzag band, across the front, — the next colour is black, 
which entirely surrounds the eye ; eyelids, of a bright azure, 
running into violet next the eyeball ; lores, greenish blue ; 
naked skin in front black ; jugular pouch, jet black ; hind head 
subcrested ; along the sides of the neck there runs a line of 
loose unwebbed feathers of a dingy ash colour, resembling the 
plumage of callow young ; here and there, on the upper part 
of the neck, one perceives a feather of the same ; on the fore- 
Sula, Briss. 
1. Sula Bassana, Briss— Common during summer over the coasts of the United States, 
especially the southern. 
2. L.fusca, Briss. — Booby. — Common in summer on the coasts of the Southern States. 
Heliornis, Bonat. 
1. H. Surinamensis, Surinam Heliornis. — An accidental visitant in summer in the Middle 
States. 
I have introduced Heliornis here, hut without at all placing it in this station 
from my own opinion of its real place ; the form of the birds contained in it 
(amounting yet to only two species), is very curious, and though showing the form 
of the body, and, according to Bonaparte, of the skeleton of Plotus, yet the habits 
are much more that of the Grebes. This agrees with the arrangement by the 
Prince of Musignano in one range, but I do not so easily see its connexion in the 
opposite di rection with P/iacEfon and aSm/o, the immediately precedinggenera. — Ed. 
