CORMORANT 



343 



Y(JUNG MEKGANSKKS. 



North America is too rare a visitor to this country to merit a definite 

 place in the British h'st. Indeed, up to the year 1900 only about 

 thirteen instances of the occurrence of the species appear to have been 

 recorded, and of these at 

 least three are doubtful. On 

 the other hand, it is only 

 fair to state that in four of 

 these instances at least two 

 birds were reported. Out of 

 the thirteen occurrences four 

 are claimed by Ireland (of 

 which at least one is doubt- 

 ful) and there may be a fifth. 

 Perhaps this is a rather lower 

 percentage than might have 

 been expected from the 

 habitat of the species. Two 

 of the occurrences are Scottish ; while two others are East Anglian. 

 From the fact that the notches on the edges of the beak are 

 shorter and blunter, and not distinctly inclined backwards at the tips, 

 the hooded merganser is generically separated by some writers from 

 its kin under the name of LopJiodytes cuciillatus. A handsome 

 semicircular crest, black in front and white tipped with black behind, 

 characterises the drake of this species. 



Cormorant '^^^ cormorant (literally " sea-crow ") is the first of 

 (Phalaeroeorax three British representatives of an order which in- 

 carbo) eludes not only the cormorants and gannets, but 



also the pelicans, frigate-birds, and tropic-birds. 

 For this group the name Steganopodes is commonly employed, and 

 it is an excellent term, insomuch as it refers to the uniting of all four 

 toes by webs, which forms the most easily recognisable character of 

 the whole assemblage. Nevertheless some writers prefer to supersede it 

 by the term Pelicaniformes. Agreeing with the duck group (Anseres) 

 in the closed type of palate and also in the oval form of the apertures 

 of the nostrils in the dry skull, the cormorants and their relatives 

 differ by the inclusion of the hind-toe in the webbing of the foot, as well 

 as by the abrupt truncation of the hind end of each half of the lower 

 jaw behind its articulation with the skull, and also by the absence of 

 flat surfaces on the base of the skull for the articulation of the hind 

 movable bones of the palate. On the other hand, both groups agree 



