Identifier: birdsEuropeVGoul (find matches)
Title: The birds of Europe
Year: 1837 (1830s)
Authors: Gould, John, 1804-1881
Subjects: Pictorial works Birds
Publisher: London, Printed by R. and J.E. Taylor, pub. by the author
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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g the usual browntint pervading the upper surface, and the mottled greyish white on the chest and lower parts: as theyadvance to maturity this dress give place to a more decided and glossy plumage of jet black and grey.At the pairing-season, like the Common Cormorant, it becomes temporarily decorated with numerousfine linear feathers, of a white colour, on the sides of the head, neck, and thighs. Although we have everyreason to believe that both sexes participate in this change, we cannot positively assert that this is thecase. The adult male in summer has the whole of the plumage of a glossy greenish black ; each feather of theback and wings margined with black ; neck, head, and thighs ornamented with fine filamentous white feathers ;the rest of the plumage black. The winter dress resembles that of summer, except that the fine white feathers on the head, neck, andthighs are entirely wanting. The Plate represents a male of the natural size, undergoing the change from winter to summer.
Text Appearing After Image:
« L+/Q SHAG or GREEN CORMORANT. Phalacrocorax cristatus, Steph. and Flem.Le Cormoran largup. The present species is rather abundantly distributed throughout the rocky and precipitous shores of theBritish Islands; indeed it is yet a question whether it does not exceed in number the larger species, Phalacro-corax Carlo, with which it associates, particularly during the breeding season, but from which it may easilybe distinguished, as also from all the other Cormorants, by the intense green of its body, and, during theseason of incubation, by the elegant flowing semi-erect crest, and by the absence at this period of the delicatewhite markings on the sides of the neck and thighs, so conspicuous in the other species of the genus. The crestis only assumed during the season of reproduction, and is not found at all in birds of the first and secondyear. When fully adult, the sexes offer no difference in their external characters. In habits and mannersthey strictly resemble the Cormorant: like

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