Malayan Ornithology. 203 



the breast and back ; belly pure white ; wings and tail black 

 tinged with green ; wing-coverts brown, the feathers having 

 whitish margins ; middle claw pectinated. The bird had a 

 very rank fishy smell. 



(TRACULUS CARBo, Linn. The Common Cormorant. 



On 29th May, 1877, while returning down stream to Kwala 

 Kangsar, after a few days' shooting on the upper reaches of 

 the Perak river, I shot what I believe to be a specimen of 

 the Common Cormorant. 



In my notes I have written : 



" Soon after daylight, as we were drifting with the stream 

 past the village of Enggar, loud exclamations from my Malay 

 boatmen drew my attention to two large birds which were 

 walking about side by side on a sandbank in the middle of 

 the river. Steering within shot, I fired from beneath the 

 attap roof covering the canoe and killed one of them, and, 

 wading to the bank, found I had got a fine Cormorant, the 

 first I have seen in this part of the country. It was not quite 

 dead when I reached it, and whilst flapping about on the 

 sand disgorged four or five small fishes. It was a female, 

 length 34 inches, tarsus 2, middle toe with claw 3J ; irides 

 pale green ; beak at front 2^, in colour dirty white, black 

 on the ridge ; gular pouch bright yellow ; head, back of neck, 

 wings, back, and tail rich bronze slightly tinged with green, 

 and having the feathers of the upper part of the back, also the 

 scapulars and the wing-coverts, edged with black ; lower back 

 and sides of abdomen uniform dark greenish- bronze colour; 

 face, front of neck, breast, and middle of the abdomen white, 

 much mottled and streaked with brownish black. 



PLOTUS MELANOGASTER (Gm.). The Indian Snake-bird. 



I got one of these curious birds, looking like a cross be- 

 tween a Heron and a Cormorant, at Malacca ; it was shot in 

 April, out of a party of ten or fifteen, on some pools at Kas- 

 sang, a marshy district in the neighbourhood of the settle- 

 ment. The local bird-collectors did not seem to be familiar 

 with it ; so probably it is rare in that part of the country ; but 

 further north, in Perak, I met with it on several occasions, 



