THE DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT. 
3 
generally incorrectly called the Common Cormorant. This 
species probably does occur but is not common. We examined 
many hundred birds at comparatively close range about Perc6 
and Gaspe basin but did not detect any that could be mistaken 
for it, and it is not likely that they breed in the immediate 
neighbourhood. 
The Double-crested Cormorant is a rather large bird, com- 
paring favourably in this respect with a good sized domestic 
duck, but slimmer in build and more graceful in outline. Sitting 
in the water it has quite a loon-like appearance both in silhouette 
and action. The adult is solid black with green reflections over 
the most of the body plumage. The back feathers are vaguely 
margined with brown, making each feather appear to stand out 
as if in relief. Spaces about the eyes, and at the base of the 
bill, and a small though well developed gullar or throat pouch 
are bare of feathers and coloured bright orange. The eyes are 
green with purple edges to the lids and the interior of the mouth 
is a brilliant, almost cobalt, blue. The younger birds are dull 
brown, a little lighter below, and the facial colours much re- 
duced in brightness. In the young of the year these bare patches 
are flesh pink with dull cloudings, but every gradation in 
colour of both naked and feathered parts appears at appropriate 
ages. 
At Perc6 the cormorants nest only on the top of Perc6 
rock. That great isolated fragment standing in the sea just 
off the salient point of the coast forms an ideal nesting place for 
them and the Herring gulls with whom they share the available 
space. The Rock, 2,100 feet long, about 80 feet wide on top, 
and nearly 300 in height, with smooth, sheer, unscalable sides, 
pierced through with its giant natural arch, is too well known to 
demand more than general remark here. The top is flat, gently 
undulating, and given up entirely to the bird association before 
mentioned. From a distance, the top of the rock appears in 
summer to be covered with sparkling frost or snow; but a closer 
inspection, from Mount Joli on the mainland, 800 feet or so away, 
resolves this frosting into white bodies of gulls and ground 
plastered with guano. Everything is white, not a blade of grass 
shows. Slight mounds here and there with birds perched on top 
