Page:Cassell's book of birds (IA cassellsbookofbi04breh).pdf/257

 difficult to procure specimens; all that is requisite is to find out the trees upon which they sleep and towards evening to take up a position in the vicinity and patiently await their coming. When one of them is shot, all the survivors tumble, as if dead, into the water below, where they immediately dive, and when they come up again, only show their necks above the surface; moreover they generally ensconce themselves among the floating weeds, where they are hidden from observation. The Prince von Wied, when travelling in Brazil, tried to shoot Anhingas from a boat, laying himself down at the bottom, and allowing it to float with the stream until he came close to some of them, at which he instantly fired; he found, however, that it was easier to waste his shot than to kill the birds, as their bodies were completely hidden in the water, and to hit their slender necks before they could be withdrawn was a very different matter. Dr. Bachmann gives the following interesting account of two Snake Birds which he brought home and kept with a view to taming them:—

(Plotus Levaillantii).

"While these two birds," he says, "were yet in the same cage, it was curious indeed to see the