Also snakebird, snake bird. [SNAKE sb.]
1. A bird belonging to the genus Plotus, esp. the American species P. anhinga, characterized by its long snake-like neck; the darter or water-turkey.
1791. W. Bartram, Carolina (1792), 130. Here is … in the waters all over Florida, a very curious and handsome species of birds; the people call them Snake Birds.
1814. A. Wilson, Amer. Ornith., IX. 79. Black-bellied Darter, or Snake-bird, Plotus melanogaster.
1838. Audubon, Ornith., IV. 136. Anhinga or Snake-bird, Plotus anhinga.
1883. Fish. Exhib. Catal. (ed. 4), 152. The Darter, sometimes known as the snake bird, is not at all uncommon in Bengal.
1895. Lydekker, Roy. Nat. Hist., IV. 280. The darters, snake-birds, or snake-necks, form a group of four species.
2. dial. The wryneck, Iynx torquilla.
1831. Rennie, Montagu’s Ornith. Dict., 576. Long Tongue. Emmet Hunter. Snake Bird.
1844. Zoologist, II. 449. The bird … proved to be what is here [in Kent] provincially called a ‘snake-bird,’ and only known among the lower orders by that name. Ibid. (1848), VI. 2186. The wryneck [in Norfolk] is the ‘cuckoo’s leader’ and ‘snake-bird.’
1889. H. Saunders, Brit. Birds, 262. When disturbed, the sitting bird makes a loud hissing,… which has led to the popular name of ‘Snake bird.’
