1915 J Shufeldt, Extinct Cormorant found in Montana. 485 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF THE EXTINCT CORMORANT 

 PHALACROCORAX MACROPUS FOUND IN MONTANA. 



BY R. W. SHUFELDT, M.D. 



Plate XXX. 



Charles H. Sternberg was the first one to discover the fossil 

 bones of a large extinct cormorant in the Pliocene formation of 

 Oregon. These bones belonged to a number, or rather represented 

 a number of individuals of different ages and probably both sexes. 

 Subsequently, Cope described this extinct cormorant and named 

 it Graculus macropus. 1 



Several years afterwards, under the name Phalacrocorax macro- 

 pus, I reexamined the thirty-four parts of fossil bones of the 

 collection made by Sternberg, and compared them with the corre- 

 sponding ones in several species of existing cormorants found in 

 the avifauna of the United States. A table of measurements was 

 also made and presented. 2 Including the two metacarpi that 

 originally belonged in the Condon collection, there were four more 

 or less imperfect specimens of that bone of the skeleton represented, 

 while none of these fragments were figured on the plates. 



Thus our knowledge of this cormorant stood up to the ninth of 

 July, 1913, when the American Museum of Natural History of 

 New York City issued its ' Bulletin ' containing my " Review of the 

 Fossil Fauna of the Desert Region of Oregon, with a Description 

 of Additional Material Collected there." (Vol. XXXII, Art. vi, 

 pp. 123-17S. Pis. ix-xliii, figs. 1-578.) In this work I refer to 

 what was formerly set forth in the Philadelphia Academy memoir, 

 and the remark is made that "The present reexamination of the 

 material tends to confirm this latter opinion; and, as the fossil 

 bones of P. macropus have never been illustrated, I have devoted 

 four plates and many figures to them in the present paper." 



1 Cope, E. D. i Bull. U. S. Geol. and Geogr. Surv. of Terr., Vol. IV, No. 2 (1878). 

 pp. 386, 387. 



2 Shufeldt, R. W. "A Study of the Fossil Avifauna of the Equus Beds of the 

 Oregon Desert." Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., Vol. IX, Pis. xv-xvii, Phila., Oct.„ 

 1892, pp. 389-425. 



