XIV 



CORMORANT: NIGGER GOOSE 

 121. Phalacrocorax dilophus floridanus 



This big black bird is about thirty inches long and is 

 easily identified if one will only remember that no other 

 water bird resembles it closely, save the Water Turkey, 

 or Anhinga. The Cormorant is sometimes incorrectly 

 called ' Water Turkey. ' ' 



The Double Crested Cormorant is the bird usually 

 seen passing through the central part of the United 

 States to its northern nesting grounds, while the other 

 variety is found in the great rookeries along the Gulf 

 coast. 



While on a hunting trip to Kodiak Island, Alaska, 

 I frequently saw at close range specimens of the Red- 

 faced Cormorant, and of the Violet Shag, the largest of 

 the family. They are beautiful birds with richly irides- 

 cent greenish plumage. All of this family fish either from 

 the surface or from a perch on a rock or post. They 

 do not dive, like the Brown Pelican and Kingfisher, from 

 a height while flying over the water. With their great 

 strength of body and rapid swimming ability these big 

 birds pursue and capture fish as they dart through the 

 water, and the fish have little chance of escape when 

 once captured by their hooked, serrated bills which, with 

 their dilatable gular sacs, can swallow a fish a foot long, 

 a pound in weight, and larger than the neck of the birds. 

 (Fig. 18.) 



I spent a part of several days in a Cormorant rook- 

 ery on an island in the Gulf of Mexico, off the west coast 

 of Florida. This rookery, with its closely and roughly 

 built nests of coarse sticks, reminded me of a vast hive 

 of giant, black-feathered bees. So closely packed were 

 the nests in some of the live oak trees that their sides 

 overlapped. In aji area of twenty by thirty feet I 

 pictured sixty-two nests, all occupied by young Cormo- 

 rants. Just imagine a spectator's predicament under- 



70 



