PALLAS'S CORMORANT 



{PHALACROCORAX PERSPICILLATUS) 



A BOUT the same time that the Pied Duck 

 disappeared from the Atlantic coasts of 

 America, Pallas's Cormorant became extinct on the 

 Pacific side of the continent. So far as we know, 

 this, the largest Cormorant of modern times, was 

 an inhabitant of Bering Island, where it was dis- 

 covered by Steller in 1741, when Bering was 

 wrecked at that spot, the bird being killed for 

 food by the survivors of the fatality. Steller 

 informs us that this Cormorant was very abundant ; 

 and as it is evident that the bird was gifted with 

 only moderate powers of locomotion on land as 

 well as in the air, the discovery of its haunt by 

 civilised man was followed by its rapid extermina- 

 tion. In about a hundred years it had become 

 extinct, so far as is known, and all that remains 

 to us are four skins and a small series of bones ! 



It is possible that in this case again extirpation has 



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