in ornithology, a species of the pelicanus; consists of four known varieties, two peculiar to America, one to Senegal, and the fourth to the region about the Cape of Good Hope. This last is thus described by Le Vaillant in his New Travels into the Interior Parts of Africa.
"The denomination of Slange-Hals-Voogel, given to it by the Hottentots, characterizes the anhinga in a very simple and accurate manner. Buffon, who was struck with the conformation peculiar to birds of this kind, has delineated them by a similar expression.
"The anhinga (says he) exhibits a reptile grafted on the body of a bird." Indeed there is no person who, upon seeing the head and neck only of an anhinga, while the rest of the body is hid among the foliage of the tree on which it is perched, would not take it for one of those serpents accustomed to climb and reside in trees; and the mistake is so much the easier, as all its tortuous motions singularly favour the illusion. In whatever situation the anhinga may be seen, whether perched on a tree, swimming in the water, or flying in the air, the most apparent and remarkable part of its body is sure to be its long and slender neck, which is continually agitated by an oscillatory motion, unless in its flight, when it becomes immovable and extended, and forms with its tail a perfectly straight and horizontal line.
"The true place which nature seems to have assigned to the anhingas, in the numerous clasps of the palmipedes, is exactly between the cormorant and the grebe. They partake indeed equally of both these genera of birds, having the straight slender bill and the long neck of the latter; while they approach the former by the conformity of their feet, the four toes of which are joined by a single membrane. They partake also of the cormorant by their flight; having like it the wings larger and fitter for the purpose than those of the grebe, which are short and weak. The tail of the anhinga is extremely long; a characteristic very singular and remarkable in a water fowl, and which ought, it would seem, to render them totally distinct from diving birds, which in general have little or no tail. By this trait they approach still nearer to the cormorants; for though the tails of the latter are shorter, the tails of both have a great resemblance to each other, since their quills are equally strong, elastic, and proper to form a rudder when these fowls swim through the water in pursuit of fish, which constitute their principal nourishment. When the anhinga seizes a fish, it swallows it entire if it be small enough, and if too large he carries it off to a rock or the stump of a tree, and fixing it under one of his feet, tears it to pieces with his bill.
"I thought water is the favourite element of this bird, it builds its nest and rears its young on rocks and trees; but it takes great care to place them in such a manner, that it can precipitate them into a river as soon as they are able to swim, or the safety of the little family may require it."
The male anhinga differs from the female, which is smaller, in having the whole under part of the body, from the breast to the root of the tail, of a beautiful black, while the latter has the same parts of a yellow ibis-like colour. It has also, on each side of its neck, a white stripe, which extends from the eye to the middle of its length, and interjects a reddish ground. A very singular characteristic, common to all the anhingas, is that of having the feathers of the tail deeply striated, and as it were ribbed. It is a very sagacious bird, especially when surprised swimming; for its head is the only part which it exposes above the water; and if the sportman once misfires that part, the anhinga plunges out of sight entirely, and never more shows itself but at very great distances, and then no longer at a time than is absolutely necessary for breathing.