242 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 
7] 
217. LITTLE CORMORANT, Phalacrocorax pygmeus, Tem. 
The Little Cormorant is probably far rarer than the 
Long-tailed African Cormorant at the Faioum, as I only 
shot one—a male, on the Ist of June. We at once noticed 
it as something different, from its entirely black bill and 
pouch, dark brown eye, and brown head, All the African 
ones we shot—amounting to fifteen in number, had red or 
reddish eyes and yellow bills. The rest of the plumage 
was also very different. In P. pygmaeus it was more 
silky, and the scapulars and wing coverts, instead of being 
grey, broadly tipped with black, were nearly as dark as 
the rest of the back, and each feather was rimmed, not 
tipped with black. The only white upon the bird wasa 
certain number of hair-like feathers very sparsely scattered 
over it. 
The two Little Cormorants shot at the Faioum in 
February, which Captain Shelley describes at p. 296, (0. c.) 
were correctly named I have not a doubt. Perhaps the 
Long-tailed one is only a summer inhabitant. Von Heuglin 
says that P. pygmaeus was only met with by him in Lower 
Egypt in winter and spring (Syst. Ueb., No. 752). 
218, GREAT-CRESTED GREBE, Podiceps cristatus (Linn.) ; 
? “ Chaer,” 
On the desert side of Birket-El-Kairoun, there is a piece 
of water which I suppose forms part of the great lake in 
winter. It is fringed with a luxuriant growth of reeds, the 
very place for a pair of Great-crested Grebes to nest; and 
here on the 8th of June I saw two beauties, but so expert 
are they in diving at the flash, that though I got within 
twenty-five yards I failed to shoot one. 
