642 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



The specific name otperspicillatm, spectacled, was bestowed upon tin 

 bird of Pallas on account of the broad ring of bare, white skin surroundl 

 ing the eyes. So far as is kuowu, the bird was found only on Bering 

 Island, where it was discovered by Steller in 1741, at the time of Ben 

 ing's unfortunate shipwreck, when the bird was largely used for foot 

 by the survivors. 



The known history of Pallas' Cormorant is extremely brief, and has| 

 been so well recorded by Dr. Stejneger in the Proceedings of the U. S 

 National Museum for 1888, that one can not possibly do better than tc 

 quote his account. Omitting the technical portion, it is as follows : 



It seems as if the very causes which terminated the existance of the Great Aull 

 worked the same result in Pallas' Cormorant, and it is even probable that if the lattei I 

 at some early period, also inhabited the other Aleutian Islands, as is most likely, vol I 

 canic eruptions may have played a role in this drama as well as in that of the Greal 

 Auk. True, the latter was entirely deprived of its power of flight, but it is evident 

 both from the measurements of the skins as well as of those of the bones, given below. 1 

 that the wings of the cormorant were disproportionately small. Steller speaks of its I 

 great bulk of body and its weight, which varied between 1'2 and 14 pounds, so that 

 one single bird was sufficient for three starving men of the shipwrecked crew. 



With this bulk it combined an unusual "stoliditas," but it is pretty clear that this 

 stupidity, which made them such an easy prey, was due more to their slowness ol 

 locomotion on laud and in the air thau to any special temperament or dullness of in- 

 tellect. The natives of Bering Island inform me that the meat of this species was 

 particularly palatable compared with that of its congeners, aud that, consequently,] 

 during the long winter, when other fresh meat thau that of the cormorants was ob- 

 tainable, it was used as food in preference to any other. In brief, all the circumstances 

 combined to make short work at exterminating this bird at its last refuge, for there 

 is no evidence that it has ever been found during historical times in any other locality 

 than Bering Island. The result was that Pallas' cormorant, which was found by 

 Steller and his shipwrecked comrades on that desolate island in 1741, aud which at 

 that time— that is, before man ever visited its rocky shores — occurred there in great 

 numbers, "frequentissimi," as Steller says, became extinct in about one hundred years 

 from its discovery. The history of this bird forms au interesting parallel to that of 

 the great northern sea-cow {Rytina gigas). 



Up to 1837 or 1839 Steller seems to have been the only naturalist who had seen thisl 

 bird, for, although naming it in his Zoographia, all Pallas knew of the species was 

 derived from Steller's observations, whose description he merely quotes. It is, then, 

 safe to conclude that it was not among the many water birds collected by Billing's 

 expedition, which brought such rich spoils home from the Kurilesaud the Aleutian 

 Island, but which did not touch at Bering Island. In the above mentioned year 

 Captain Belcher, with the Sulphur, visited Sitka, and was there presented by Kupria- 

 noff, the Russian governor, with one of the specimens of this bird in his possession. 

 This specimen is evidently the one now in the British Museum, while the others w T ent 

 to the St. Petersburg Academy, from which one was again secured by the Leyden 

 Museum. Although obtained from the governor in Sitka, there is nothing to indicate | 

 whence came the specimens ; but inasmuch as Bering Island at that time belonged 

 to the administrative district of Sitka, at which port all the furs were received from 

 that island before being shipped to Europe; all vessels from Bering Island conse- 

 quently first stopping at Sitka, there is every probability that the specimens in ques- 

 tion were collected on that island. 



During my circumnavigation of Bering Island I lauded on September 1, 1882, at 

 Pestshanij Mys near the northwestern extremity of the island. Ascending the steep 



