Order Steganopodes. '«" 



more familiar Cormorants, tlieir bodies are more slender, the neck is thin and 

 longer, and the beak lont^- and vei-y acnminate, its margins being set with back- 

 ward-pointing serrations. The wings are long, and the tail, in which there are 

 twelve stiff feathers, is long and ronnded ; the skin round the eye is naked. The 

 legs are set far back, so that the bird when sitting assumes an erect posture. 



The Pha/acrocoracidcc, or Cormorants — which in number of species constitute 

 nearly half the Order — are distinguished b}' their ver}' short upper tail-coverts, and 

 the unusually rigid shafts to the feathers of their rather long and fan-shaped tail ; 

 b}' their legs being set far back, which gives the birds their peculiar upright 

 position ; by the outer toe exceeding the others in length, and the middle one having 

 a serrated claw ; by the strongly hooked beak and the absence — though the bill has 

 a long nasal groove — of nostrils in the adult. Their wings are proportionately- 

 shorter than in the members of the other families of the Order, while the throat- 

 pouch, such a marked character in the Pelicans, is but slightly developed, and is either 

 naked or encroached on more or less by feathers. Cormorants' eggs are rough and 

 chalky, with a bluish underground seen between the chalk}' patches, but are never 

 spotted. The sexes are alike in plumage. 



All the Cormorants fl}^ well, but they are more at home in the water than 

 in the air. They are expert swimmers and splendid divers, descending occasionall}' 

 to great depths in quest of their food, which consists almost exclusivel}^ of fishes. 

 The}' are devoid of the air-sacs under the skin, possessed b}' other members of 

 the Order. 



Their distribution is world-wide. Of the fift}' species described up to the 

 present, three are European, and only two are British. Beautiful as are the 

 European species, the}' are far excelled b}' the pure white-breasted forms in S. 

 America, S. Africa, and Australasia. 



The Sulidcc, or Gannets, are distinguished b}' having the middle pectinated 

 toe equal to, or exceeding, the outer toe in length. Two groups are recognized 

 in the family- — the White Gannets and the Brown, better known as Boobies. The 

 latter are more numerous in species than the former, and are distributed round 

 the warmer latitudes of the globe, while the White Gannets are found breeding 

 only in higher latitudes. In the northern Hemisphere, there is but one species 

 of White Gannet or Solan-Goose ; in the southern Hemisphere, however, there 

 are two, one with its habitat at the Cape of Good Hope fS. capensisj, the other 

 ^5. sei'ratorj on the coasts of the Australasian seas. The Gannets are further 

 distinguished by having a strip of bare skin down the throat — absent in the 

 Brown Gannets, however ; h\ the bill, which is longer than the head, being less 

 hooked than among the Cormorants, and the tongue aborted, while the wings and tail 



