AVES CATHARTID/E. 525 



coast points in Patagonia by Mr. Hatcher and his assistants seems to indi- 

 cate a purely salt-water form, the birds not being recorded at any point 

 away from the sea. The breeding season begins in late October and is 

 probably at its height early in November and the birds are still found in 

 the down, about two-thirds grown, in the middle of February. 



The cormorant rookery spoken of by Dr. Cunningham in the following 

 extract, was on Quartermaster Island, Tierra del Fuego, and it seems to 

 have been this kind of bird [P. albiventer) which he discovered there ; this 

 was on the 6th of April and the rookery was not a breeding but only a 

 roosting or resting place. 



"After a time we reached a plateau at the top of some cliffs, and there 

 beheld a most wonderful congregation of cormorants [Phalacrocorax carnn- 

 culatiis). On a moderate computation they must have numbered upwards 

 of a thousand, and they presented a most peculiar appearance as they sat 

 nearly erect, in regular ranks. As we ran up to them, it was most amusing 

 to watch the difficulty which they experienced in taking flight, in consequence 

 of being so closely packed together. Line after line hustled forwards for 

 some paces, and then breaking up, flew over the cliffs into the sea below, 

 where they swam out to a prudent distance. One or two, which had been 

 hit with stones, lay on their backs on the beach for some minutes, emitting 

 strange sounds, and waving about their splay feet in the air, in the most 

 ridiculous manner, till they were sufficiently recovered to take to the water. 

 The space of ground on which they had been assembled was worn per- 

 fectly bare of grass for several hundred yards, and the smell of decaying 

 fish, the viscera of which were lying about in innumerable little heaps, 

 was insupportable." (Cunn. Nat. Hist. Str. Magell. 1871, p. 191.) 



Order CATHARTIDIFORMES. 



Sharpe, Classif. Bds. p. 78 (1891); Sharpe, Hand-List Bds. i. p. 240 



(1899)- 



Family Cathartid^. 



Sharpe, t. c. p. 240 (1899). 



Genus VULTUR. 



Type. 

 Vultur Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. Ed. X. p. 86, (1758) . . . . V. gryphus. 

 SarcorampJius, Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus. i. p. 20 (1874); 

 Sharpe, Hand-list Bds. i.p . 240 (1899) (nee Dumeril). 



