PHALA CBOCOBA CID^ : COBMOMANTS. 
723 
with light and dark colors, much tinged in places with carmine ; eyes white ; bare space around 
them blue ; eyelids red ; pouch blackish ; feet black. Plumage dark and much variegated. 
Head mostly white, tinged with yellow on top, the white extending down the neck as a border- 
ing of tlie pouch and somewhat beyond ; rest of neck dark chestnut. Upper parts dusky, each 
feather pale or whitish-centred, the paler gray color prevailing on the wing-coverts. Prima- 
ries blackish, their shafts basally white ; secondaries dark, pale-edged ; tail-feathers gray. 
Lower parts grayish-brown, striped with white on the sides ; the lower fore-neck varied with 
yellow, chestnut, and blackish. 9 said to lack the chestnut coloring of the neck (?) Length 
about 4.50 feet ; extent 6.50 feet; wing 2 feet; bill a foot or more, the gular pouch extending 
about the same distance along the neck. Tail 7.00, 2 2 -feathered ; tarsus 2.50; middle toe and 
claw 4.50. The bill and soft parts very variable in color with age or other circumstance. Young 
lack the special coloration of the neck, which is simply dark brown. At first, covered with 
whitish down. The feathers of the neck of the adult are peculiarly soft and downy ; there is 
a slight nuchal crest, with stiff bristly feathers on the forehead, and lengthened acute feathers 
on the lower foreneck and breast. The brown pelican is exclusively maritime, inhabiting both 
coasts of America from tropical regions to Carolina and California. It plunges for its prey like 
a ganuet, not scooping it up swimming like the white pelican. Breeds in colonies, indiffer- 
ently on the ground or on bushes and low trees. Eggs 2-3, white, chalky, elliptical, 3,00 X 
2.00. 
55. Family PHALACROCORACID^ : Cormorants. 
Bill about as long as head, stout 
or slender, more or less nearly terete, 
always strongly hooked at the end; 
tomia generally found irregularly 
jagged, but not truly serrate ; a long, 
narrow, nasal groove, but nostrils 
obliterated in the adult state; gape 
reaching below the eyes, which are set in naked skin. 
Gular pouch small, but forming an evident naked space 
under the bill and on the throat, variously encroached 
upon by the feathers. Wings short for the order, stiff 
and strong, the 2d primary usually longer than the 3d, 
both these exceeding the 1st. Tail rather long, large, 
more or less fan-shaped, of 12-14 very stiff, strong 
feathers, denuded to the base by extreme shortness of 
the coverts; thus almost scansorial" in structure, 
recalling that of a woodpecker or creeper, and used in a 
simihir way, as a support in standing, or an aid in 
scrambling over rocks and bushes. The body is com- 
pact and heavy, with a long sinuous neck ; the general 
configuration, and especially the far backward set of the 
Fig. 502. — Knee-joint Phalacrocorax 
bicristatus, nat. size, from nature by Dr. R. 
W. Shufeldt. F, femur ; P, patella ; T, tibia ; 
Fb, fibula. 
legs, is much like that of pygopodous birds. While other Steganopodes can stand with the 
body more or less nearly approaching a horizontal position, the cormorants are forced into a 
nearly upright posture, when the tail affords with the feet a tripod of support. They also, like 
the birds just mentioned, dive and swim under water in pursuit of their prey, using their wings 
for submarine progression, which is not the case with the other families, excepting Plotidce. 
In both these families the body is not in the least pneumatic under the skin — quite the reverse 
of Pelicans and Gannets. 
Among osteological characters, aside from the general figure of the skeleton, a long bony 
