96 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



CORMORANT 

 Phalacrocorax carbo (Linnccus) 



See Color Plate 9 



A. O. U. N'umber 119 



Other Names. — Common Cormorant ; Shag. 



General Description. — Length, 3 feet. Prevailing 

 color, black. Throat sac, heart-shaped behind. 



Color. — Adults in Breeding Plumage: General 

 color, glossy olive-black : feathers of back and wing- 

 coverts, bronze-gray, sharply edged with black; pri- 

 maries, secondaries, and tail, more grayish-black ; a con- 

 spicuous white patch on flank ; numerous long white 

 plumes on head and neck ; a black crown crest about 

 I inch long; bill, dusky; bare skin around eyes, livid 

 greenish ; throat sac, yellow, bordered behind by a band 

 of white feathers; feet, black; iris, green. Adults in 

 Winter: No crest or white feathers on head and rump. 

 Young: Top of head and hindneck, brownish-black; 

 back and wing-coverts, grayish-brown, the feathers 

 with dark margins, some edged with white; throat, 

 brownish-white; wider farts, zehitish, dusky on sides 

 and across lower abdomen ; bill, grayish-brown, black on 

 ridge and tip : bare skin of face and sac, yellow. 



Nest and Eggs. — Xest : On the ground, among 

 rocks; constructed of sticks, moss, seaweed, and kelp. 

 Eggs : 3 to 4, bluish-green coated with a white chalky 

 substance. 



Distribution. — Northern hemisphere ; breeds from 

 central Greenland south to Nova Scotia, and east 

 through Europe and Asia to Kamchatka ; winters from 



southern Greenland to Long Island, N. Y., rarely to 

 Lake Ontario and South Carolina, and from the Medi- 

 terranean south to southern Africa, Australia, and 

 Malay Peninsula. 



Cuiirtisy Nat. Asso. Aud. Soc. 

 NEST AND EGGS OF CORMORANT 



The Cormorant is found generally throiigh- 

 ont almost all of the northern hemisphere. 

 From its hreeding grounds in Labrador and 



Drawing by R. I. Brasher 



CORMORANT (,';. nat. size) 

 A bird of strange appearance and interesting habits 



Greenland it strays southward in summer, and 

 occurs on the Atlantic coast in winter. It is 

 seen occasionally on inland waters, but such 

 visits probably are purely accidental, as its 



normal habitats are the scacoast and the mouths 

 of large rivers. 



It lives almost entirely upon fish, which it 

 captures under water by swimming with both 

 wings and feet, sometimes at a considerable 

 depth. In these operations it is very skillful and 

 swift, while its powerful hooked bill forms an 

 effective weapon for seizing and devouring its 

 prey. The young are fed by regurgitation, dur- 

 ing which the infant thrusts its bill far down the 

 throat of the parent. 



L'otirto^y of Nat. Asso. Aud. Soc- 



YOONG CORMORANTS 



They are naked when hatched, and do not leave the nest for 

 about a month 



