164 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 
The Darter is docile, and with little training it becomes very sociable. The 
Indian species is constantly carried about by the natives on their river boats. In 
the Zoological Gardens in London there is very often a species to be seen in 
captivity, and its diving powers in pursuit of fishes at feeding time, forms one of 
the most interesting sights in that celebrated menagerie. 
Family—PHALACROCORA CIDE. 
THE CORMORANT. 
Phatlacrocorax carbo, LaNN. 
HE geographical range of this handsome species, which is by preference a 
sea-loving bird, is very wide. It breeds along all the coasts of Europe, 
including the Feeroes and Iceland, as well as by suitable marshes, lakes, and rivers, 
often hundreds of miles from the sea. In most parts of the Asiatic Continent it 
is a resident, and it is to be met with in nearly all the islands of the eastern 
Archipelago. One of us has noted its nesting places by the rivers in the 
interior of Sumatra, and on the trees bordering the elevated lake in central Buru. 
In Africa it breeds in many localities north of the Sahara, and probably also in 
South Africa as well, although its eggs have not yet been taken there. It is a 
resident, a prolific breeder, and a voracious destroyer of the introduced fishes; in 
New Zealand and Tasmania; in Australia it is only less abundant. It ranges all 
along the eastern shores of N. America, from the south of Canada to as far north 
as Greenland. Beyond the breeding range here roughly defined, the Cormorant 
is found as a winter migrant, by the coasts, lakes, and rivers of many districts 
in all those Continents, where fish is abundant. 
In the United Kingdom it breeds wherever a suitable site presents itself; on 
ledged rocks on the coast; on an ivy clad ruined wall (as at Castle Carra, in Co. 
