242 WILD NATURE'S WAYS. 



gestivc to me of the skin of an animal stretched 

 out and nailed up to dry on a barn door about 

 the basking attitude of a cormorant. 



On the ]\Iakestone Rock at the Saltee Islands 

 off the South Coast of Ireland, cormorants and 

 guillemots breed together in great numbers. Our 

 illustration represents a small corner of the rock. 



The shag, or green cormorant, shown on the 

 opposite page guarding its downy chicks — which 

 are after a certain age the most nervous creatures 

 known to me — is a smaller bird than its congener, 

 the cormorant, and rather partial to dark holes 

 and corners in which to nestle. I have found it 

 breeding in caves so dark that you could not 

 distinguish it sitting on its eggs until your eyes 

 grew accustomed to the poverty of the light. 



Naturalists of an older school disputed whether 

 this bird used its wings to aid propulsion under 

 water or not. My experiences in the Shetlands, 

 St. Kilda, and the Outer Hebrides go to prove 

 that it certainly does make use of its wings when 

 either badly scared or otherwise placed under the 

 necessity of travelling at great speed in deep 

 water. Some idea may be gathered of the depth 

 to which this bird can dive after its prey when 

 it is stated that it has been caught in a crab pot 

 lying forty yards below the surface of the ocean. 



On the west side of Scotland the green cor- 

 morant or scart, as it is there almost universally 



