WATER BIRDS. 



67 



Fig. S. Double-crested Cormorant. Reduced. 

 (Original.) 



This bird seems to be generally distributed over the state during the 

 migrations, but is nowhere common. Most writers and observers state 

 that it is a rare migrant, but speci- 

 mens have been taken in almost 

 every county in the state, and 

 probably there are few sheets of 

 water of any size within our limits 

 which are not visited by this bird 

 occasionally. The following records 

 will give some idea of its migration: 

 Saginaw River, May 29, 1896 (Eddy) ; 

 Oakland County, May 3, 1902 

 (Swales); Mouth of Huron River, 

 April 12, 1875 (Covert) ; Sault Ste. Marie, ]\Iay 6, 1901 (Melville) ; Oakland 

 County, October 6, 1904 (Swales); St. Mary's River, September 26 (year?) 

 (Boies); Tuscola County, October 12, 1898 (Eddy); Wyandotte, October 

 25, 1904 (Barrows); Cadillac, November 13, 1897 (Selous). There are 

 also records without dates from Lansing, Kalamazoo, Muskegon County, 

 and Monroe. Undoubtedly more specimens are noticed in fall than in 

 spring because many more people are in the field during the fall shooting, 

 and also because there are actually more birds in the fall, the young of 

 the year being added to those which went north in the spring. 



The distribution as given above would indicate that possibly the species 

 nests about the Great Lakes, but I know of no breeding record for Michigan, 

 and the nearest point of which I find, a recent 

 record is Shoal Lake in Northern IMinnesota. Ac- 

 cording to Mr. Chas. Dury it nested at St. Mary's 

 Reservoir, western Ohio, 25 or 30 years ago. The 

 nests are placed sometimes on rocky ledges, some- 

 times on low bushes, sometimes on trees, prefer- 

 ably dead ones. They are built of sticks, roots, 

 and twigs, and the eggs, from two to five, are 

 greenish white with a more or less chalky shell. 

 They average 2.52 by 1.59 inches. 



The bird is so seldom seen that few have ob- 

 served it in life, and no one appears to be familiar 

 with its habits in Michigan. It dives easily and 

 constantly and remains for a long time under 

 water, in this respect resembling the loons and 

 grebes. It is also frequently mistaken for a 

 duck, but the length of the neck should prevent 

 an error of this kind. The fact that it frequently 

 alights on dead trees, the points of high rocks, 

 or even on the tops of boat houses and other 

 buildings about the water is a point likely to 

 attract attention at once and prevent its being 

 mistaken for a duck. The bird is like most 

 other Steganopodes in having no external nostrils; 

 breathing when adult entirely through the mouth. 

 This is true of all species of cormorant so far 

 as known, and F. A. Lucas states (Auk XIV, 87) 

 that "Probably the external nostrils close about 

 the time the young cormorants take the water and begin to feed 

 themselves." 



Fig. 9. Foot of Double-crested 

 Cormorant. (Original.) 



