The adults, especially in the case of the Boobies, are often absurdly fearless on land, while the female, when on the nest, grunts at an intruder, and pecks or bites sharply. They are frequently caught on shipboard by fixing bits of fish on floating pieces of wood, in which the beak is transfixed by the violence of the plunge; they do not, however, afford palatable food, though in Scotland the Solan Goose is half-roasted and so preserved for eating. Fam. III. PHALACROCORACIDAE.–The genus _Phalacrocorax_ includes the Cormorants and Shags, birds of similar coloration, which differ chiefly in the brilliancy of their metallic hues and the proportion of white to black or brown in the plumage, the following examples giving a fair idea of the whole. {76}[Illustration: FIG. 22.–Cormorant. _Phalacrocorax carbo._ × ⅛.] _P. carbo_, the Common Cormorant, with fourteen rectrices, has the head and neck glossy blue-black, interspersed with white hair-like feathers, the remaining upper parts bronzy-black, the throat white, the bill and feet grey-black. In spring a slight crest adorns the occiput and white patches appear on the thighs. In common with its congeners this species has naked lores, orbital and gular regions, which are here of a yellow colour, becoming redder below the eye; the iris is emerald-green. The skin of the throat is dilatable and forms a pouch for food. It breeds on most of the British coasts, except between the Humber and the Thames, and occasionally inland; while it ranges to Greenland northwards, and thence down the Atlantic to New Jersey in the west, and to North and even South Africa on the east, as well as through Europe and Asia. The Australian and New Zealand _P. novae hollandiae_ is doubtfully distinct. _P. dilophus_, of which several forms occur on the shores and in the interior of North America as far south as Mexico, is not unlike _P. carbo_, but has a tuft of long narrow recurved plumes on each side of the crown in the nuptial dress, which are black, white, or particoloured according to the locality. The bare loral region and gular sac are orange, and no white is visible on the throat or flanks. The splendid _P. pelagicus_, on the contrary, has white flank-patches in addition to white filaments on the neck and rump, the head and {77}neck are violet-black, and a bronzy-purple tinge extends thence to the wings, the naked areas being brownish-red. It ranges from Kamtschatka to Western Mexico, and even winters in North Japan. _P. urile_, of the extreme north of the Pacific, is very similar, but has the gular pouch bluish with red hinder margin, the lores, orbits, and an additional strip of bare skin on the forehead being orange. _P. perspicillatus_, of Bering Island, now considered extinct, is another close ally, in which the filamentous feathers are yellowish and the orbits white. _P. graculus_, the Green Cormorant or Shag, breeding in Britain chiefly on the western side,