2 
MUSEUM BULLETIN NO. 13. 
On August 10, we returned to Perc6 and finished the re- 
mainder of our work, leaving for Ottawa August 23. 
DESCRIPTION AND LIFE HISTORY NOTES 
OF THE DOUBLE - CRESTED CORMORANT. 
The Double-crested Cormorant ( Phalacrocorax auritus) 
belongs to the Steganopodes or Long-winged swimmers, an 
order characterized by having three fully developed webs to 
the foot. They are thus easily separated from other orders of 
swimming birds, the ducks, gulls, toons, etc., which are furnished 
with only two such webs, the space between the outer and the 
hind toes being vacant or with partial webs only as in the grebes. 
This order of three-web footed birds is composed of five 
families three of which are represented in Canada by the Gannet 
or Solan Goose, the Cormorants, and the Pelicans. The cor- 
morants can be easily distinguished from the others by their 
long, powerful bill terminating in a distinctly hawk-like hooked 
knob. The bill of the gannet comes to a clean sharp point, while 
that of the pelican is much flattened and furnished with an 
enormous throat or gullar pouch. 
In eastern Canada we have two cormorants: the Double- 
crested (. Phalacrocorax auritus); and the Common Comorant, 
identical with the Shag of Europe and England (. Phalacrocorax 
carbo ). Of these, the latter is slightly the larger and in adult 
plumage can be separated from the former by the occurrence 
of a white patch on the flanks and a border of the same colour 
along the edge of the small throat pouch. The adult Double- 
crested Cormorant, in the highest plumage, has a crest, on either 
side of the crown, of fine filamentous feathers, which is absent 
on the Common Cormorant. This crest, from which it derives 
its vernacular name, however, is not always present. It seems 
that some birds never attain it and others wear it for so 
short a time in the early breeding season that its value as a 
diagnostic mark is much reduced. 
It is probably due to this frequent absence of a crest, that 
the cormorant inhabiting the Gaspe coast has heretofore been 
