420 THE COMMON CORMORANT. 



at the base flesh-coloured; the eyes bluish-grey. The general colour of their 

 skin is dull livid; the feet purplish-dusky, the webs yellowish-brown. 



The following is a description of the smaller individual represented in the 

 plate, and which was about two weeks old. The length is twelve inches and 

 a half; the colour dull livid, the abdomen and breast lighter, the forehead, 

 gular sac, and bases of the mandibles, flesh-colour, tinged with yellow, as is 

 the mouth. The head and upper part of the neck are bare, as well as the 

 lower surface of the wings. Over the rest of the body are small down tufts 

 rising in regular series, excepting along an impressed line extending from the 

 anterior part of the thorax to the anus. The apertures of the ears are round, 

 extremely small, being only half a twelfth in diameter; the eyes very small, 

 the iris grey. The aperture of the posterior nares is linear-lanceolate, 

 smooth on the edges, half an inch long. A probe introduced into it passes 

 readily out by the nostril, which is basal, linear, small, two-twelfths long, 

 placed at the commencement of the long groove which separates the sides 

 from the ridge of the mandible, and covered above by the skin, so as to 

 be not readily observed, although it is easily dilatable. Each internal nostril 

 is oblique, much wider below, and has on its inner side a transverse soft 

 ridge, which divides it into two cavities, the posterior deep and funnel- 

 shaped, passing backwards and upwards, the anterior becoming narrower 

 towards the external aperture. The tongue is extremely small, four-twelfths 

 long, elliptical, with a central ridge. The oesophagus is extremely dilatable, 

 and as far as the middle of the neck is of larger diameter than below, but it 

 again dilates as it enters the stomach. Its length is five inches and a half. 

 The inner coat is smooth in its dilated part, but in the rest is raised into 

 numerous longitudinal ridges or folds, which at the lower part are undulated. 

 The stomach is oblong, four and a half inches long, quite membranous, and 

 without appai^ent central tendons. The gastric glands are disposed so as to 

 occupy two spaces, the one three and a half inches by two, the other a little 

 smaller. The inner coat is soft and without wrinkles. The intestine is five 

 feet two inches long, at its upper part three-twelfths in diameter, gradually 

 diminishing to one-twelfth. At the distance of two inches from the anus are 

 two coeca, three-twelfths long, one-twelfth in diameter, and rounded. The 

 contents of the stomach were fragments of fish, with numerous bones, and a 

 pebble about half an inch in diameter. The heart triangular, much flattened. 

 The liver of two very unequal lobes, the right one two inches and a half 

 long, the other one and a half. The specimen, which I had preserved in 

 spirits, was examined in my presence by my friend Mr. Macgillivray. 

 Whether the fact of the anterior aperture of the organ of smell being open in 

 the young Cormorant has been observed by any other person than myself, I 

 know not; but it would seem that the general opinion is, that Cormorants 



