68 Hall, Notes on Bird-Skins from N.W. Australia. [isf'oct. 



113. Phalacrocorax sulcirostris (Brandt), Little Black 

 Cormorant. 



Phalacrocorax sulcirostris, Gould, Birds Aust., foL, vol. vii., pi. 67 

 (1848); Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus,, vol. xxvi., p. 376 

 (1898). 



One unsexed skin, November, 1901. 



This skin is light brown practically all over the body, tending 

 to blackish-brown on the flanks and rump. The oily green 

 colour, except on the rump and upper tail coverts, is wanting. 

 Where the feathers should be ash in the middle and margined 

 by a black band they are brown in the middle with a lighter 

 brown as a margin. It could safely be called the Little Brown 

 Cormorant. 



Field Observations on Western Australian Birds. 



By Alex. Wm. Milligan, Perth. 



The following notes and observations relate to birds secured 

 or seen by the writer on two short expeditions made by him in 

 the month of October and at Christmastide of last year, and in 

 that portion of the south-west division of Western Australia 

 known as the Margaret River, and particularly a strip of 

 country having for its northern limit Cowaramup Brook and its 

 southern limit the Margaret River. The first expedition 

 occupied 14 days, and the last five days. 



The nature of the country was of a diversified character, 

 consisting firstly, on the immediate littoral, of high limestone 

 hills, covered with sand and clothed on their summits and 

 ocean faces with dwarf scrubs, knee-high, and, behind and 

 between those hills, of sheltered gullies or pockets carrying 

 " stinkwood," dryandra, and peppermint scrubs ; secondly, of a 

 narrow tract of lower, flat, sandy, moist country, carrying " red 

 gums," banksia, tea-tree, and " blackboys " (grass-trees) ; and, 

 thirdly, of granite and ironstone ranges, bearing jarrah trees. 

 Intersecting the whole at irregular intervals were brooks taking 

 their sources in these ranges and flowing either openly to the 

 sea or hiding their identity underground, and eventually issuing 

 out of the high sea cliffs and thence reaching the ocean through 

 narrow and limited fertile flats. Along the course and in the 

 vicinity of the brooks (except where they came within the direct 

 influence of the ocean winds) were belts of the gigantic clean- 

 limbed karri trees, with patches of " willow " and other scrubs 

 undergrowing. The limited brook flats carried a burden of 

 sage-bush, blister-bush, and other low-growing scrubs. 



Each class of country had its feathered denizens peculiar to it, 

 although, needless to say, many avi-faunal forms were, speaking 

 in a limited sense, cosmopolitan. 



For example, the dwarf coastal scrubs furnished ideal and 



