COMMON CORMORANT. 149 



24th of January, and the patch was completed in five weeks. 

 These white feathers hegan to disappear about the 16tli of 

 June, and by the 20th of July were almost entirely gone. 

 In the wild state the white patches, &c., are assumed by 

 the middle of February in this country, .and much earlier in 

 the south of Europe. The sexes are alike in plumage, 

 but the female has the longer crest, and is the brighter 

 in colour, as well as the larger in size. A young Cormorant 

 brought to the Gardens in the autumn of 1830, did not go 

 through any change during the summers of 1831 or 1832. 

 The adult plumage is not acquired until nearly the end of 

 the third year. 



In an interesting paper in the Journal of the Linnean 

 Society for 1881, Zoology, p. 455, Dr. J. C. Ewart has 

 pointed out that the nasal arrangement in the Cormorant, 

 and to some extent also in the Gannet (Sula), differs from 

 that of other birds in several important particulars. There 

 is a very small external nostril, the passage in the slit-like 

 aperture being nearly obliterated in the adult ; the osseous 

 canal is scarcely 1^ millimetres in diameter in its narrowest 

 part ; and the nasal chamber is in very free communication 

 with the mouth. This is supposed to explain the gaping 

 of the bill often noticed after prolonged flight. 



The adult bird during spring, and the early part of 

 summer, has the bill pale brown, the point horny, hooked, and 

 sharp ; irides emerald-green ; forehead, crown, nape, and part 

 of the neck black, mixed with many white hair-like feathers, 

 the black feathers on the occiput elongated, forming a crest ; 

 base of the upper mandible, and the gular pouch yellow, 

 the pouch margined with white ; the back and wing-coverts 

 dark brown, each feather margined with black ; quill-feathers 

 black ; tail, consisting of fourteen feathers — whereas the 

 Green Cormorant has only twelve — black ; lower part of 

 the neck all round, with the breast and all the under surface 

 of the body, a rich velvet-like bluish-black, except a patch 

 on the thigh, which is white ; the legs, toes, and their con- 

 necting membranes black ; whole length about three feet ; 

 of the wing fourteen inches and a half. 



