( :i72 ) 



t'miuJ alsu iu the high cliti's ucai- Plaflers, wlierc some hiiuters weut down I'ur it on 

 ropes.* 



" From its voice it is also ualleJa Uinger (' Scheller '). Some anthers take it to 

 be the Pluilacrocorax, for in size aud culour it resembles the raveu. It acquires also 

 a bald head in its age (' er gwiiut auch eiuon Glutz in seiuem alter '), as 1 have seen. 

 Turnerus takes Aristoteles' Water-liaveu, Pliuins' Phulai:vocora.i:,\ and our Wood- 

 Raven for the same bird, but it is wrong, because their descriptions are nulike, the 

 Wood-Raven not having broad feet and not being a water-bird, but seeking its food 

 in green meadows aud swampy plaees. Our Wood-Haven is of the size of a hen, 

 (piite black if you look at it from a distance, but if you look at it close by, especially 

 iu the sun, you will consider it mixed with green. Its feet are also somewhat like 

 a lien"s, but longer aud the toes split. The tail is not long. It has a crest on its 

 head ])ointing backwards, though I do not know whetlier this is seen in all indi- 

 vidnals and !it all times or not. The bill is reddish, long, and suited to poke with 

 it into the ground, and into the fissures and holes of walls, trees, and rocks, to 

 extract the worms and beetles which hide themselves in such places. Their legs 

 are long aud of a dark red. They live on grasshoj)pers, crickets, small fishes, and 

 frogs. They generally nest on the high old walls of the ruined castles, of which so 

 many are found in Switzerland. When I dissected their stomachs 1 found, among 

 other vermin, also many creatures which are injurious to tlie roots of agricultural 

 plants, especially the millet. They also eat the grubs which produce the cock- 

 chafers. They fly very high, and lay two or three eggs. They fly a\vay first of all 

 birds, really in June, or as others told me about St. Jacob's Day. They fly in swarms 

 and cry ' Ka, ka,' and most of all when their young are taken, which is generally done 

 about five days after Whitsuntide. They return to us in early spring, when the 

 storks arrive. If the young are taken from the nest some days before they fly, they 

 may be easily reared and tamed, so that they fl\' out to the fields and ijuickly 

 return. The young ones are also praised as an article of food, and considered a 

 great delicacy, for they have a lovely flesh and soft bones. But those who rob 

 their young leave one iu every nest, in order that they may like to return in the 

 following year." 



Aldrovandus, Ornithologiae Liber XIX. cap. LVII. (p. iJ7U), reproduces 

 Gesner's figure of the " Waldrapp," and aliuost all his letterpress, only with some 

 quite unimportant and unnecessary additional remarks. But on the ibregoing pages 

 (20s and 2()y) Aldrovandus has the figure of a Phalacrocorax sent to him from 

 lllyria Q' L'li/dsiis Aldruraiuli Phalacrocorax ex lllyrio missus^') and Bellouius" 

 Phalacrocorax. These two are evidently meant to be the same thing : the latter 

 doubtful, and at any rate a very poor likeness, but possibly of a }oimger bird ; 

 the former a very good representation of the " red-clieeked lliis," and reproduced 

 in our PI. VIII. This figure, as we have seen, is not quoted in Liunaeus' tentii 

 edition, but in 1766 (Ed. XII.) he refers to it, quoting "Aldr. oru. 3. p. 270, 207." 

 The latter (cap. LVI.) contains the description of the Phalacrocorax from lllyria. 

 Aldrovandus first refers to several birds mentioned by former writers, beginning with 

 I'linius" Coreits ttquaticii.t, which he considers to be the same as the t'hulacroconix, 

 aud discusses several vernacular names of diti'erent countries, lie then describes the 

 bird from the figure sent to liim from lllyria as being of the size of a capon, with 



• Only ill the Latin c-dition Ihi; lotk.-, nunv I'a«8au and Kulillieim are said to be its home. _ 



f It is evident that the created Shag is meant as having been sometimes confounded witli our bird. 



