THE DOUBLE-BREASTED CORMORANT 35 



enemies, and probably they are sometimes able to do this. 

 Not so with the fishermen, however. That fishermen are 

 used to a rough, sea-faring life, and as they must make 

 their living from the fish they catch they are always anxi- 

 ous to secure an abundance of good bait. They made it 

 a practise to land on the cormorant's nesting grounds and 

 kill the young birds by the hundreds or even thousands, 

 using them for bait in their sea-fishing. It seems strange, 

 but fish, when they are looking for a delicate tit-bit, often 

 prefer the creatures that live on land to those that live in 

 the water, just as most carnivorous animals and birds often 

 prefer fish to other animals. 



These birds ordinarily lay two to four eggs, which, if 

 they were thoroughly cleaned, would be of a greenish color 

 like a duck's ^gg. As it is they are usually covered with a 

 whitish deposit and are often so plastered with mud and 

 filth that it is difficult to tell the real color. When the 

 young birds hatch they are queer, ugly little creatures, 

 covered with a muddy black down. They are helpless, 

 being blind for more than a week. For perhaps two weeks 

 the mother birds feed them by emptying their own stomach 

 into the throat of the young bird. When the bird is old 

 enough to see well and is beginning to be quite well 

 feathered, say by the time he is two weeks old, he should 

 weigh about two pounds. 



Now the mother begins to place whole fish in his mouth 

 and allows him to tear them up for himself. In a few days 

 she will cease taking even this much trouble, but will lay 

 the fish on the side of the nest or on the ground by the 

 nest and expect the young bird to get them when he is 

 hungry. The young grow very rapidly, but they stay in 

 the nest, or at least do not leave it for more than a short 



