DARTER, OR SNAKE-BIRD. 
205 
head there is a small knob or protuberance ; the neck, near its 
centre, takes a singular bend, in order to enable the bird to 
dart forward its bill with velocity when it takes its prey ; legs 
and feet of a yellowish clay colour, the toes, and the hind part 
of the legs, with a dash of dusky ; claws greatly falcated ,* when 
the wings are closed they extend to the centre of the tail. 
Length, from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail, two 
feet ten inches,* breadth three feet ten inches; bill to the angle 
of the mouth, full four inches ; tail, ten inches and a half, com- 
posed of twelve broad and stiff feathers ; weight, three pounds 
and a half. 
The serratures of the bill are extremely sharp, so much so, 
that when one applies tow, or such like substance, to the bird’s 
mouth, it is with difficulty disengaged. 
The lower mandible and throat, as in the divers, are capable 
of great expansion to facilitate the swallowing of fish, which 
constitute the food of this species. The position of these birds, 
when standing, is like that of the gannets. 
The above description was taken from a fine adult male 
specimen, which was shot by my fellow-traveller, Mr T. Peale, 
on the 1st of March, 1818, in a creek below the Cow Ford, 
situated on the river St John, in East Florida. We saw some 
others in the vicinity, but, owing to their extreme vigilance 
and shyness, we could not procure them. 
From the description of the white-bellied darter of Latham 
and others, which is unquestionably this species, one would be 
inclined to conjecture, that the bird figured as the female is 
the young male. But this point it is not in my power to as- 
certain. All the darters which I saw, while in Florida, were 
males. 
The snake-bird is an inhabitant of the Carolinas, Georgia, 
* The admeasurement of the specimen described in the first edition of the ninth 
volume, was made by Wilson himself from the stuffed bird in Peale’s museum. 
It differs considerably from that described above 5 but as our specimen was a very 
fine one, there is room to conjecture that there was some error in the admeasure- 
ment of the former, purs being described immediately after death. 
