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BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
ORDER STEGANOPODES. TOTIPALMATE SWIMMERS. 
Family PHALACROCORACID.®. Cormorants. 
CORMORANTS.* 
These birds are found more or less abundantly in nearly all parts of the world. 
About twenty-five species, it is stated, are known to science. According to different 
writers we have in North America eleven or twelve kinds of these curious birds. A 
single species is known to occur in Pennsylvania. Although most numerous on the 
sea-coast, many of them visit lakes and large rivers in the interior. They are of a 
gregarious nature, and frequently great numbers are observed together, especially 
when breeding. Cormorants in company with Great Blue Herons ( Ardea herodias) 
and Water Turkeys (Anhinga anhinga) breed in considerable numbers on large 
lakes in the interior of Florida. The rather bulky nests are constructed principally 
of sticks and are built on high rocky ledges, or on trees and thick bushes; eggs, 
two to five in number, are a pale greenish-blue color, overlaid with a yellowish- 
white chalky crust. The Chinese train Cormorants to catch fish for the market. 
The prudent Chinaman knowing the voracious nature of his feathered servant places 
a band or close-fitting collar about the bird’s neck before it starts from its perch in 
search of the finny tribe. Cormorants subsist almost entirely on fish; they are good 
swimmers, expert divers, but walk poorly. In these birds the body is heavy, the 
neck long, the long, stiff tail is composed of 12 or 14 feathers, and the four long toes 
are all connected by webs. All have a leathery sack at the base of the lower 
mandible. 
Genus PHALACROCORAX Brisson. 
Phalacrocorax dilophus (Sw. & Rich.). 
Double-crested Cormorant. 
Description. 
Adult.— Bill rather long, stout and slightly tapering ; upper mandible strongly 
hooked and acute ; gular sac naked ; nostrils not visible ; tail 12 feathers. Length 
about 30 inches ; extent about 48 inches ; upper mandible brownish above and yel¬ 
lowish on sides ; lower, mainly yellow ; naked skin about the eyes and gular pouch 
orange-yellow ; inside of mouth black ; iris green ; legsandfeet black. Head, neck, 
lower part of back, rump and under parts glossy greenish-black ; upper portion of 
back and wings brownish-black, with many feathers bordered with black ; curly 
black tufts on sides of head back of eye ; tail black. Specimen taken in the fall has 
no lateral crests; the head and neck brownish-black and the body above and below 
is mainly black, with a faint greenish-gloss. 
Habitat. —Eastern coast of North America, breeding from the Bay of Fundy 
northward ; southward in the interior to the great lakes and Wisconsin. 
The only locality in this state where the Double-crested Cormorant 
has been observed appears to be on the lake shore in Erie county, where 
Messrs. George B. Sennett and Mr. James Thompson, both residing in 
Erie city, inform me it occurs as a somewhat rare and irregular visitor 
late in the fall or early winter. October 26, 1889, when shooting ducks 
on the “ peninsula ” near Erie city, Mr. James Thompson and a com- 
*In the first edition of the Birds of Pennsylvania, page 232. the Cormorant (P. carbo) was given as a 
“very rare, or accidental winter visitor. ” and that Mr. H. B. Graves had obtained one in Berks county. 
1 have recently ascertained that the bird referred to was not captured in Berks county or in Pennsylvania. 
