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high as the Middle States, and the Common Cormorant 
( Graculus carbo ), which ranges along the Atlantic coast from 
Labrador southward. 
The strange-looking bird of this order, which is kept in 
the fountain basin in the Aviary, is the Darter or Water 
Turkey ( Plotus anhinga). They are natives of the most im¬ 
penetrable swamps of the Gulf States, and are so difficult of 
approach that their capture alive is an event of some rarity. 
They commonly perch on a branch closely overhanging the 
surface, and on the least alarm drop noiselessly into the 
water, and swim away unnoticed. Nuttall says of this bird :— 
“ Its long and dark serpentine neck and small head, vibrating back¬ 
ward and forward, present entirely the appearance of a snake, whether 
seen through the foliage of a tree, or emerging from the still and sluggish 
stream in which it often swims, with the body wholly immersed to the 
neck, and on being approached or startled, even that is instantly with¬ 
drawn, and sweeping beneath the flood in perfect silence, we at length 
see it again rise at a distance which defies approach.” 
There are three or four allied species in Asia, Africa, and 
Australia. 
The Pelicans are well-known representatives of this group; 
of them, the Garden has the following:— 
Brown Pelican {Pelec anus fuscus ), North America. 
White Pelican {P. trachyrhynchus') , North America. 
Crested Pelican (. P . crispus ), Mediterranean Sea. 
White Pelican ( P . onocrotalus ), Mediterranean Sea. 
The last is a bird of remarkable beauty, the males being 
tinted with an exquisite rosy shade over the body when fully 
mature. 
The American white pelican is peculiar in bearing near 
the middle of the upper side of the bill, an excrescence, which 
is shed at the close of the breeding season, about August, and 
grows out again in the following spring. The crested peli¬ 
can, when adult, is the largest of these birds. 
The Impennes , or wingless birds, are represented by the 
penguins, which inhabit the antarctic seas. In these birds 
the wings are so small as to be useless for flight, and serve the 
same purpose in swimming as the forelimbs of the seal. 
They dive and swim under water with marvelous rapidity in 
pursuit of the fish which is their chief food. But one speci- 
