168 Visit to the Haunts of the Cormorant. 



The cormorants staid not to witness my unwelcome descent 

 into their ancient and almost inaccessible settlement. They 

 all took wing, as soon as we reached the edge of the cliff, 

 and went far away to sea. It was a difficult matter to pro- 

 cure their eggs ; for the nests were built in places where the 

 rocks overhung them ; and it was only by my giving the rope 

 a swinging motion, and then taking advantage of it, as it 

 brought me to the face of the cliff, that I was enabled to get 

 a footing on the ledges which contained them. These nests 

 were composed of thick sticks, plants from the rocks, grass, 

 ketlocks which had gone to seed, and a little wool. There 

 were four young birds in one, three eggs in another, two 

 in a third, and one newly laid in a fourth. The shell of the 

 cormorant's eggs is incrusted with a white chalky substance, 

 which is easily scraped off with your penknife, and then you 

 get at the true colour of the shell ; the outside of which is 

 of a whitish green, and the inside of a green extremely 

 delicate and beautiful. The egg is oblong in shape, and you 

 find it small for the size of the bird. The four young cor- 

 morants were unfledged, and covered with a black down. 

 Their long necks, and long wing-bones, gave them a gro- 

 tesque, and an almost hideous appearance. They would 

 have been of service to the renowned Callot, when he was 

 making his celebrated sketch of the Temptations of St. An* 

 thony. There came from the nests a fetid smell, so in- 

 tolerable, that you might have fancied you had got among 

 Virgil's Harpies ; or that you were inhaling exhalations from 

 the den of Cacus. Nothing could have been more distressing 

 to your nasal sensibilities. 



It is remarkable that on the Raincliff not a kktiwake is 

 seen to alight; and scarcely ever observed to fly close past it. 

 I saw no signs that this bird had ever made its nest here. An 

 attentive naturalist, who would take up his quarters in this 

 neighbourhood, and visit the coast every day during the 

 breeding season, might possibly be able to discover the cause 

 why the kittiwake, which is seen in such countless thousands 

 from Flamborough Head to Bempton, should shun the Rain- 

 cliff, which, apparently, differs in nothing but height from the 

 other parts of this bold and rocky shore. 



I am positive that we have not two species of cormorant 

 in Great Britain. The crested cormorant, with a white spot 

 on each thigh, is merely the common cormorant in his nuptial 

 dress. This is not the only bird which becomes highly 

 ornamented during the breeding season. On some future 

 day, when the storms of winter forbid all access to the fields, 

 and condemn me to the dull monotony of life within doors, 



