The Farallon Cormorant 



Authorities. — Gambel (Carbo dilophus), Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., ser. 2, 

 i., 1849, p. 227 (Calif.); Ridgway, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., vol. ii., 1884, p. 94 {Phala- 

 crocorax dilophus albociliatus, new subspecies; type locality, Farallon Ids.); Ray, 

 Auk, vol. xxi., 1904, p. 436, pi. (Farallon Id., breeding; habits) ; Grinnell, Condor, vol. 

 x., 1908, p. 185, figs. (Salton Sea; desc. of breeding colony); Howell, Pac. Coast Avi- 

 fauna, no. 12, 1917, p. 37 (s. Calif. Ids.). 



LANDSMEN are slow to realize the fertility of the sea. Its great 

 expanse is so little broken at the surface by the irruption of life that we 

 cannot easily comprehend the vast and varied resources either of its 

 depths or of its teeming shallows. The Gulls, the Gooneys, and the Alan- 

 o'-war-birds serve to heighten this superficial impression which we get of 

 ocean's scanty fare, for we find them traveling a league for a bite, and a 

 day's journey for a full meal. Not so, however, with the Cormorant. 

 Here is a bird, the very symbol of voracity, built to seize and swallow and 

 speedily digest. When we see him and know his ways, we realize the long- 

 suffering of the great mother, and the boundless provision she has made 

 for her hungry children. 



Cormorants of more than forty species range 



Taken on the 

 Southeast Farallon 

 Pholo by the 

 A ulhor 



THE TYPE COLONY 

 IT WAS FROM SPECIMENS TAKEN IN THIS ROOKERY THAT THE RACE, albociliatus, WAS DESCRIBED BY RIDGWAY 



1938 



