1184 
PHALACEOCOBAX CAEBO. 
In Barm ah, where this species breeds in large numbers, the white flank-spot is said by Mr. Oates (and, I apprehend, 
the filamentous feathers too) to be acquired in September (the eggs being laid in October) and doffed again in 
the beginning of December. In the north-west of India, Mr. Doig saw many specimens which had lost the 
white neck-plumes in November, but still retained the thigh-spot. A specimen shot in January at Jaffna has 
the neck, but not the head, covered with the white feathers and a scanty white flank-spot ; from the distribution 
of the remaining feathers they are apparently being doffed, and not donned, so that the bird would appear to have 
bred at some place not far distant. 
After the disappearance of the white neck- and flank-feathers the ground-colour of the pouch appears to get paler, and 
the entire skin becomes yellow, these differences constituting the winter plumage. 
Young (callow nestling males). Skin blackish slaty, the crown reddish, but the skin round the closed eye bluish, with a 
dark streak over the eye ; bill — upper mandible dusky fleshy, a white spot at the curve of the tip, behind which there 
is a black patch ; tip of the under mandible blackish, the remainder with the pouch yellowish fleshy ; legs and feet 
fleshy yellow, the claws black ; the tibial skin concolorous with that of the body. 
In about a fortnight the young are covered with down. The iris is then grey, tinged with greenish ; forehead naked, 
the skin bluish or fleshy grey ; the culmen and edge of lower mandible black-brown, the tip pale fleshy ; remainder 
of bill fleshy, yellowish next the pouch, which is fleshy yellow; front of tarsus and top of toes dark brown ; rest 
of legs and webs fleshy yellow. The down is sooty black above and beneath ; occasionally individuals have patches 
of white down on the under surface. At this period the young are about the size of a small Duck, but the body is 
longer. The average weight of six examples was 2£ lbs., some weighing as much as 2j lbs. 
On leaving the nest the bird is in the plumage of the first year, during which period the full dimensions are attained. 
Examples in the flesh, about one year old, measured — Length 35-5 to 36-0 inches ; wing 13-5 to 14-0, expanse 
57 - 5 ; tarsus 2 - 5 ; outer toe 4‘5 ; bill to gape (straight) 4 - 2 to 4 - 5 : weight of a male 7 lbs. 
Iris pale grey, sometimes tinged with greenish ; orbital skin brownish yellow ; loral skin dull greenish yellow; gular 
pouch entirely gamboge-yellow ; bill as in the adult, as also the legs. 
white ; neck mottled brown and white ; from neck to vent brownish black, with a good deal of white on the 
breast and abdomen, the latter almost all white in the region of the belly ; thigh-coverts, like the back, black, 
glossed with green; lower tail-coverts dark brownish black; under wing-coverts and flanks brownish black.” 
(Butler.) 
The nestling, as in the last species, is in all probability covered with blackish down. 
Ohs. Never having procured this species while in Ceylon, and being unable to detect specimens in the British 
Museum, or in any collections to which I have access in England, I have been, I regret to say, obliged to transcribe 
the entire descriptions from the writings of other naturalists. There is a mounted specimen in the British 
Museum of an immature Cormorant, of rather diminutive size, from China, which at first sight might be taken for 
the present species ; but it is, in my opinion, merely a rather small example of the last. The wing measures 12-8 
inches; tail 7'0; bill to gape 3-5 ; tarsus 2-0. Neither Swinhoe nor David include this species in the avifauna 
of China, and it is therefore probable that the P. sinensis of Shaw was nothing more than the Common Cormorant. 
Distribution . — This species, so far as I could ascertain, is a rare bird in Ceylon. Layard remarks that he saw a few 
on the fishing-kraals in the Jaffna estuary in company with the next species. Mr. Iloldsworth did not meet with it at 
all; and although I have seen at a short distance a few birds which I identified at the time as the Lesser Cormorant, I 
have never shot it. On one occasion I met with a pair of Cormorants which were perched on stakes in the Tamara 
kulam, near Trincomalie, which were intermediate in size between the large and small species, and which were near 
enough for me to discern that they were in immature plumage ; at other times 1 have seen similar birds in one or two 
tanks in the interior; and I have no doubt that they all belonged to the present species. It is well to remark, with 
regard to Layard s identification, that the birds he saw on the estuary (salt water) near Jaffna may have been examples of 
the Common Cormorant, which was at that time not known to visit the island. As I cannot ascertain that specimens 
have ever really been procured, I place this species in a footnote article. 
Jerclon speaks of this Cormorant being equally widely distributed in India with the last, and even more generally 
spread than that species, he having procured it in the Carnatic, Tickell in Central India, and Blytli in Bengal and 
Burmah. Mr. Hume, however, writing in ‘Nests and Eggs,’ takes exception to this statement, and at the time he writes 
