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ON THE EUROPEAN FORMS OF THE CORMORANT 

 AND LITTLE BUSTARD. 



BY 



ERNST HARTERT, Ph.D. 



I. The Cormoeant. 



Until I came to study the Palaearetic Cormorants last 

 year, it liad not generally been understood that there 

 existed, in Europe, two quite distinct forms of Phalacro- 

 corax carbo, though as long ago as 1824 C. L. Brehm 

 separated the large and small subspecies, but then, by 

 separating a third form and again in 1831, when he 

 recognized four races, two large and two small ones, he 

 went, as usual, too far, and therefore ornithologists 

 became accustomed to throw all his forms into the 

 melting-pot of synonyms. 



The fact is, that two forms are easily distinguishable, 

 and they may be diagnosed as follows : — 



(1) Phalacrocorax carbo carbo (L.) 

 Common Cormorant. 



Pelecanvs Carbo Linnaeus, Syst-Nat., Ed. X., 1, p. 133 (1758 — 

 "Habitat in Europa." Restricted terra typica : Western coasts of 

 Scandinavia. See Nov. Zool., 1916, p. 293). 



Synonyms: Carbo vulgaris Lacepede 1790; Carbo Cormoranus 

 Meyer and Wolf 1810 ; Carbo glacialis Brehm 1824 ; Phalacrocorax 

 Carbo major Nilsson 1835 ; Gracvlus amer-icanvs Reichentach 1860 ; 

 Phalacrocorax carbo, c. macrorhynchus Bonaparte 1867. 



Larger : bill from end of frontal feathering 68-77, 

 sometimes even 82, wing 340-360 mm. Underside deep 

 blue-black, almost purplish blue. Bill thicker, more 

 powerful. 



Habitat : Greenland, Iceland, Faeroes, Scotland with 

 its islands, Scandinavia and north Russian coast to the 

 Kola Peninsula, also Ireland, England and Wales, but it 

 seems that in England, at least in autumn and winter, 

 also Ph. c. subcormoranus and perhaps intermediates are 



