<J2 A MANUAL OF THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



other with sharp pointed bill and long thin neck with a " kink " in it, but exactly 

 similarly formed feet. The former, the Phalacrocoracidae or Cormorants, is composed 

 of seabirds with a world-wide distribution, some species now living on inland Jakes 

 and marshes ; the latter, the Anhingidse or Darters, has become restricted to 

 the rivers of the tropics and subtropical portions of America, Asia, Africa and 

 Australia. 



The skull of these two varies in the latter lacking the nasal hinge and less 

 modifications purely adaptive. The desmognathism of the palate is similar as are 

 the holorhinal nostrils, though reduced to mere chinks in the latter. There are no 

 basipterygoid processes and the descending process of the lachrymal fuses with the 

 ectethmoid, while there is a small bonelet resting upon the jugal bar in front of the 

 lachrymal ; a peculiar style -like bone is present, attached to the occipital, and also 

 the quadrate is peculiar in form. The cervical vertebrae are twenty in number, the 

 dorsal vertebrae opisthoccelous with very large hypapophyses, the sternum with the 

 keel as described for the order and the furculum articulating with the keel but not 

 anchylosed. The carotids are one or two and the syrinx with a single pair of intrinsic 

 muscles and a complete bronchidesmus in the first family, incomplete in the second. 

 The accessory semitendinosus is always missing in the leg muscles and generally 

 the accessory femoro-caudal, but the latter sometimes met with in the first-named 

 family, while the biceps slip may be missing also in that group, though generally 

 present. The oil gland is always present and tufted with two or four orifices, the 

 aftershaft apparently absent, and the wing aquincubital. The pterylosis has not 

 been criticised carefully, being cited as uniform with narrow spaces. The young 

 are hatched naked, but are covered with thick down later. 



FAMILY PHALACROCORACUXE. 



This family comprises the Cormorants and Shags, and the generic distinctions 

 tenable in this group are unsettled. In connection with Australian species we admit 

 four genera, Hypoleucus, Mesocarbo, Microcarbo and Phalacrocorax. These are well 

 differentiated forms and their geographical range confirms their distinction. Some 

 workers are so peculiar in their generic values that they deny generic distinction to 

 Nannopterum, a flightless form of large size. As it is still a Steganopod, whatever 

 its evolution may have been, it must belong to the genus Phalacrocorax which 

 includes, to them, every Cormorant-like bird, large or small. Good osteological 

 differences exist but these are minimised as being due to disuse, etc., as if every altera- 

 tion in structure were not due to disuse or the opposite. In the genera above 

 mentioned similar structuial differences exist, much more striking ones than are 

 accepted as valid in the Procellariae. Osteological features of distinction have been 

 recorded as also anatomical items, thus the biceps slip is present or absent, while the 

 syrinx varies, etc., etc. 



Genus HYPOLEUCUS. 



Hypoleucus Reichenbach, Nat. Syst. Vogel, p. vii, 1852 (?1853). Type (by original designa- 

 tion) : Pelecanus varius Gmelin. 



Leucocarbo Bonaparte, Consp. Gen. Av., Vol. II., p. 176, 1856. Type (by subsequent designa- 

 tion, Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., Vol. XXVI., p. 331, 1898) : Carbo bougainrillii 

 Lesson. 



Medium to large Plialacrocoracine birds with long slender bills, long wings, 

 short tails composed of twelve feathers. 



These birds approach species of Phalacrocorax closely, from which they differ 

 in the number of the tail-feathers. 



