CORMORANTS 307 



external conditions of life for the cormorants cannot be so great 

 in New Zealand as through America from Canada to Tierra del 

 Fiiego, or as in Africa and Asia taken together; and yet there 

 are fifteen species in New Zealand to twelve in America, and 

 thirty in Asia and Africa combined. Consequently, we cannot 

 suppose that their specific characters depend entirely upon 

 external conditions. 



All the generic characters of the group, such as the hooked bill, 

 the rudimentary nostrils, the close, glossy plumage, the short legs, 

 and the large webbed feet, are eminently adapted to the birds' 

 mode of living. In comparing the sub-genera, however, we find 

 characters which cannot, at present, be set down as useful. The 

 shape of the bill, for example, varies a good deal, being long and 

 slender in Sticticarho (P. punctatus, etc.), and comparatively 

 short and stout in Microcarho (P. melanoleucus, etc.), while the 

 birds do not show any difference in habits. In P. campheUi, on 

 the contrary, there is a difference in habits without any 

 corresponding modification. In the sea around Campbell Island 

 there are hardly any fish. and. according to Dr. Filhol, who spent 

 four months on the island examining the fauna during the 

 French expedition to observe the transit of Venus in 1874, the 

 Campbell Island cormorant lives on mollusea, which it scrapes 

 off the immense patches of brown kelp that border the coasts ; 

 but no modification has taken place in the bill, which cannot be 

 well adapted for its new use. 



The same remarks apply in a measure to the tail. It is long 

 and stiff, and is well adapted for its uses, which are : rising from 

 the water, sitting on rocks, and probably as a rudder when 

 diving. But in the sub-genera Graculus {P. carlo, etc.), there 

 are fourteen tail feathers, while all the others have only twelve. 

 This difference cannot be considered as adaptive, and could not 

 have been accumulated by natural selection. 



Probablj^ the concliLsions arrived at here will not be accepted 

 by either Neo-Darwinians or Neo-Lamarckians. They show that 

 the study of even a single group, like the cormorants, reveals 

 several characters that cannot be explained by natural selection, 

 organic selection, or use-inheritance, as these agencies preserve 



