976 



NESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRATJAN BIRDS. 



Gould mentions the bird as especially abundant on Kangaroo Island, 

 where ho first saw this species. By a coincidence, that is the locality 

 whence the examples of eggs in my collection were obtained. Tliey were 

 collected by Mr. Thos. W. Cornock, an employe of the Adelaide 

 Museum, from a rookery of about 500 nests on a sand-pit. The time 

 of the season was remarkable, being the beginning of April (1888), when 

 incubation had just begrin. 



I observed roughly-made dark nests, splashed white with bird-hme, 

 terraced in small rookeries on isolated rocks on the Abrolhos, also on 

 islets off Rottnest Island, further south, but all appeared deserted, or 

 were not in use. 



On the 1st October, 1894, Mr. John W. Mellor found a few of these 

 Cormorants inhabiting a small island in the " Coorong. South Aus- 

 ti-alia, with Pelicans ; both birds were breeding. The Comiorants had 

 just commenced to incubate, their nests being situated here and there 

 amongst or near the Pelican.*'. When the Cormorants flew rovuid, a 

 Crow instantly appeared, spiked an egg with its bill, and carried it off, 

 despite Mr. Mellor's endeavours to frighten the black marauder away. 

 In answer to my further enquiries, Mr. IMellor was good enough to 

 write : " Comiorants. The one in question is the Pied Cormorant. 

 I found these birds laying within a few yards of the Pelican rookery. 

 The nests were about eighteen inches in diameter at the base, and about 

 twelve inches across the top They were placed on the tramplcd-down 

 saltbush, and about a dozen or eighteen yards from the water, and were 

 built about a foot to eighteen inches high, of sticks and sprays of salt- 

 bush crossed and recrosscd until the whole was quite firm and compact, 

 and had a neat round appearance, with a cup-shaped depression at the 

 top, about a couple of inches deep, in which were placed either two, 

 three, or four eggs. The birds had not long taken up their breeding 

 quarters, as some nests had only one fresh egg in them, wliile others 

 were barely fini.shed in constniction. Mr. White tells me that he 



has never heard of them breeding in the spring before, he having found 

 them breeding on small islands off Kangaroo Island on several occasions 

 in the autumn, generally starting about the beginning of March, two 

 to four- eggs in a clutch. The late Mr. Samuel White, the well-known 

 naturalist of Adelaide, who is quoted by Gould in his works on Aus- 

 tralian ornithology, found these birds breeding on a sand-spit in the 

 Bay of Shoals, at Kingscote, Kangaroo Island, South Australia, on the 

 24th May, 1875. An extract from his note-book says : ' On a sand-spit 

 in the Bay of Shoals, at Kingscote, Kangaroo Island, South Australia, 

 which is gi'own over with bushes, these birds were in thousands ; the 

 season was nearly over, there being only about forty nests with eggs, 

 but the young birds covered an acre of gi-ound as thick as they could 

 stand, and the stench was sickening. Their nests, as usual, were made 

 of a few sticks and bits of seaweed placed close together on the bushes 

 that had been trodden down.' " 



Gould mentions, on the authority of Dr. Latham, that the Pied 

 CoiTnorant also breeds in trees. I possess eggs that were Inkcii from 

 nests in trees in the Cape Otway district, Victoria. 



As far north as Adele Island, North-west Coast, Mr. James Walker, 



