282 
STEGANOPODOUS BIRDS. 
again.” When swimming with only the head and neck exposed, these birds may 
easily be mistaken for snakes; while their flight is exceedingly like that of 
cormorants. Their food consists exclusively of small fishes, which they capture in 
the water and transfix with their sharp beaks. From observations made on a 
captive specimen by Mr. Beddard, it appears that when fishing the darter swims 
beneath the surface of the water with its wings partially expanded, and with a 
peculiar jerky action of the head and neck, suggestive of a man poising a spear 
before throwing it. When within striking distance, the bird, by a vigorous lunge of 
the neck, impales the fish on the tip of its beak, and immediately afterwards rises to 
the surface, when it shakes off its prey by a series of jerks of the head and neck. 
In order to accomplish this bayoneting process, the darter has a peculiar “ kink ” 
in the vertebrae of the hinder part of the neck, which can be suddenly straightened 
out by muscular action, when the head is necessarily shot forwards. Darters build 
in trees; the African species generally placing its nest, which is very like that of 
the tropic-bird, on a bough from four to eight feet above the water. The eggs, 
which are three to four in number, have light green shells, thickly encrusted with 
the usual chalky coating. Soon after they are hatched the young have naked 
heads, but are elsewhere covered with dirty white down. In India the nests are 
frequently built in association with those of the little cormorant and herons. 
Certain gipsy tribes who travel in boats on the rivers of Eastern Bengal are very 
fond of taming darters, each of their vessels having one of these birds sedately 
perched on its stern. 
The larpfe and somewhat goose-like birds known as gannets and 
Gannets. 
boobies, of which there are some nine species, are much more stoutly 
built than the darters, and have shorter and thicker necks and beaks. The beak is 
strong and conical, with its horny covering composed of several pieces, its cutting 
edges serrated, and its gape extending behind the level of the eyes; the nostrils 
being, as in the cormorants, situated at its base and almost invisible. The legs 
are short, and the claw of the third toe is pectinated like that of the cormorants. 
The wings are of great length, with the first quill the longest; and the twelve- 
feathered tail is rather short and wedge-shaped. A naked area occupies the face 
and throat. The skeleton differs from that of the cormorants and darters in that 
the furcula is not united by bone to the summit of the breast-bone. 
The common or white gannet (Sula bassana), as the typical and best known 
example of the genus, will serve as our chief example. Measuring about 34 inches 
in total length, the adult gannet has the plumage entirely white, with the exception 
of that of the head and neck, which is buff, and the black primaries of the wings. 
The beak is horny white, the naked part of the face bluish black, the iris straw- 
colour, and the front of the leg and foot green, and the remainder nearly black. 
In young birds the plumage of the upper-parts is blackish brown flecked with 
white, while beneath it is mingled ashy and buff. Although occasionally driven 
inland by stress of weather, the gannet, like its congeners, is a coast-haunting bird, 
associating on certain cliffs, such as the well-known Bass Rock, in countless swarms. 
Its range extends over the coasts of the Northern Hemisphere as far north as 
latitude 70°, and as far south as the tropics; although the birds only frequent the 
southern portion of their habitat during the winter, and are but seldom seen at any 
