62 A MANUAL OF THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
other with sharp pointed bill and long thin neck with a “kink” in it, but exactly 
similarly formed feet. The former, the Phalacrocoracide or Cormorants, is composed 
of seabirds with a world-wide distribution, some species now living on inland lakes 
and marshes; the latter, the Anhingidz or Darters, has become restricted to 
the rivers of the tropics and subtropical portions of America, Asia, Africa and 
Australia. 
The skull of these two varies in the latter lacking the nasal hinge and less 
modifications purely adaptive. The desmognathism of the palate is similar as are 
the holorhinal nostrils, though reduced to mere chinks in the latter. There are no 
basipterygoid processes and the descending process of the lachrymal fuses with the 
ectethmoid, while there is a small bonelet resting upon the jugal bar in front of the 
lachrymal ; a peculiar style-like bone is present, attached to the occipital, and also 
the quadrate is peculiar in form. The cervical vertebre are twenty in number, the 
dorsal vertebra opisthoccelous with very large hypapophyses, the sternum with the 
keel as described for the order and the furculum articulating with the keel but not 
anchylosed. The carotids are one or two and the syrinx with a single pair of intrinsic 
muscles and a complete bronchidesmus in the first family, incomplete in the second. 
The accessory semitendinosus is always missing in the leg muscles and generally 
the accessory femoro-caudal, but the latter sometimes met with in the first-named 
family, while the biceps slip may be missing also in that group, though generally 
present. The oil gland is always present and tufted with two or four orifices, the 
aftershaft apparently absent, and the wing aquincubital. The pterylosis has not 
been criticised carefully, being cited as uniform with narrow spaces. The young 
are hatched naked, but are covered with thick down later. 
Famity PHALACROCORACIDA. 
This family comprises the Cormorants and Shags, and the generic distinctions 
tenable in this group are unsettled. In connection with Australian species we admit 
four genera, Hypoleucus, Mesocarbo, Microcarbo and Phalacrocorax. These are well 
differentiated forms and their geographical range confirms their distinction. Some 
workers are so peculiar in their generic values that they deny generic distinction to 
Nannopterum, a flightless form of large size. As it is still a Steganopod, whatever 
its evolution may have been, it must belong to the genus Phalacrocorax which 
includes, to them, every Cormorant-like bird, large or small. Good osteological 
differences exist but these are minimised as being due to disuse, ete., as if every altera- 
tion in structure were not due to disuse or the opposite. In the genera above 
mentioned similar structural differences exist, much more striking ones than are 
accepted as valid in the Procellariz. Osteological features of distinction have been 
recorded as also anatomical items, thus the biceps slip is present or absent, while the 
syrinx varies, etc., etc. 
Genus HYPOLEUCUS. 
Hypoleucus Reichenbach, Nat. Syst. Vogel, p. vit, 1852 (?1853). Type (by original designa- 
tion): Pelecanus varius Gmelin. 
Leucocarbo Bonaparte, Consp. Gen. Av., Vol. II., p. 176, 1856. Type (by subsequent designa- 
tion, Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., Vol. XXVI., p. 331, 1898): Carbo bougainvillii 
Lesson. 
Medium to large Phalacrocoracine birds with long slender bills, long wings, 
short tails composed of twelve feathers. 
These birds approach species of Phalacrocorax closely, from which they differ 
in the number of the tail-feathers. 
