Malayan Ornithology. 203 



the breast and back ; belly pure white ; wings and tail black 

 tinged with green ; wing-coverts brown, the feathers having 

 whitish margins ; middle claw pectinated. The bird had a 

 very rank fishy smell. 



Graculus carbo, Linn. The Common Cormorant. 



On 29th May, 1877, while returning down stream to Kwala 

 Kangsar, after a few days^ shooting on the upper reaches of 

 the Perak river, I shot Avhat I believe to be a specimen of 

 the Common Cormorant. 



In my notes I have written : — 



"■ Soon after daylight, as we were drifting with the stream 

 past the village of Enggar, loud exclamations from my Malay 

 boatmen drew my attention to t^vo large birds which were 

 walking about side by side on a sandbank in the middle of 

 the river. Steering within shot, I fired from beneath the 

 attap roof covering the canoe and killed one of them, and, 

 wading to the bank, found I had got a fine Cormorant, the 

 first I have seen in this part of the country. It was not quite 

 dead when 1 reached it, and whilst flapping about on the 

 sand disgorged four or five small fishes. It was a female, 

 length 34 inches, tarsus 2^, middle toe with claw 3^ ; irides 

 pale green ; beak at front 2/^^ in colour dirty white, black 

 on the ridge ; gular pouch bright yellow ; head, back of neck, 

 wings, back, and tail rich bronze slightly tinged with green, 

 and having the feathers of the upper part of the back, also the 

 scapulars and the wing-coverts, edged with black ; lower back 

 and sides of abdomen uniform dark greenish-bronze colour; 

 face, front of neck, breast, and middle of the abdomen white, 

 much mottled and streaked with brownish black. 



Plotus melanogaster (Gm.). The Indian Snake-bird. 



I got one of these curious birds, looking like a cross be- 

 tween a Heron and a Cormorant, at Malacca; it was shot in 

 April, out of a party of ten or fifteen, on some pools at Kas- 

 sang, a marshy district in the neigh l)ourhood of the settle- 

 ment. The local bird-collectors did not seem to be familiar 

 with it ; so probably it is rare in that part of the country ; but 

 further north, in Perak, I met with it on several occasions, 



p2 



