THE



Avicultural Magazine


THE JOURNAL OF THE

AVICULTURAL SOCIETY



Fourth Series.—V ol. XL—No. 2 .—All rights reserved. FEBRUARY, 1933.



THE FLIGHTLESS CORMORANT OF THE

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS


A species of Cormorant which has found flight unnecessary and has

therefore lost the use of its wings is as remarkable a bird as was the

Great Auk, which was in the same predicament. The one is now extinct

and it is feared the other will be soon.


A few days before Christmas, 1932, Lord Moyne returned home

from a yachting trip on which he had visited the Galapagos Islands,

those barren mounds of black lava which lie on the Equator 500 miles

from Ecuador, in the Pacific. He brought back with him four examples

of the large and strange Marine Lizard, five of the beautiful little

Galapagos Doves (Nesopelia galapagcensis ), and one example of the

curious Flightless Cormorant (Nannopterum harrisi), which lives

in one small portion of this group of islands, namely on part of the

coast of Narborough and the adjoining western side of Albemarle.

Darwin visited these islands during his historic voyage of the Beagle ,

in 1835, and gave a wonderful account of their fauna, but he missed

this Cormorant, which suggests that it was scarce even then. It was

not described until 1898, when, a series was collected for the Hon.,

now Lord, Rothschild, who wrote, when describing it, “ This bird is

the largest known Cormorant, and its wings are quite soft and incapable

of flight and of about the same size as the wings of the Great Auk.”

In colour this Cormorant is dull blackish, a hue that is apparently



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