AVES PHALACROCORACID^. 5II 



deep ash in color with narrow margin of black defining each and often a 

 black stripe along the shaft; upper wing-coverts like the scapulars; lower 

 wing-coverts and axillaries dull black. 



Lower parts : Uniform glossy black with a greenish tint. 



Bill : Dull horn-brown, deep in shade along the culmen and becoming 

 yellowish along the edges of the mandibles ; the sides of both mandibles 

 have the surfaces rough, a condition most apparent in breeding birds. 



Feet : Legs and feet dark greenish black. 



Iris: Dark blue in the breeding season. Green in immature birds 

 (Pozzi). 



Adult birds not breeding are similar in general appearance, but the 

 white plumes are wanting, the white defining margin at the border of the 

 pouch is not present, and the upper neck, the head and lower neck and 

 breast are shaded strongly with snuff-brown dark in tone. 



Immature birds and young of the year are much browner beneath and 

 the distinct admixture of buffy feathers is marked, beginning on the head 

 and extending down the neck well below the breast. The upper parts 

 are similar to those of adults, but the ash is lighter in tone. This descrip- 

 tion is based on five birds in the Pozzi Collection, Princeton University 

 Museum, taken at Ensenada, Province of Buenos Aires in May, 1895. 



Geographical Range.— KW^mWc and Pacific Coasts of South America ; 

 north to the coasts of Central America ; there is a bird in the Dresser 

 Collection, British Museum, labeled Fort Stockton, Texas; Patagonian 

 Coasts and inland waters. 



This cormorant does not appear to be very common on the southern 

 sea-coasts, nor in the interior of South Patagonia, but is abundant in both 

 the interior and on the coast to the north ; there are records of its occur- 

 rence at many points in Patagonia proper as well as in the regions about 

 that country, but it was not recorded or collected by the Princeton Expe- 

 ditions, nor are there any specimens in the large series of birds in the 

 British Museum from the Straits of Magellan or the adjacent littoral. 



Dr. Coppinger furnishes the following biography of this bird as observed 

 by him in the Straits ; evidently the "jet black bird" called by him Phala- 

 crocorax imperialis refers to this species, P. vigiia, the only wholly black 

 cormorant of the region. 



"There was a 'rookery' of the red-cered cormorant {PJialacvocoyax 

 magellanicus) near Cockle Cove (October, 1879), but the nests were 



