138 SHAG. 



both sexes have alike. " I got a medal at the Fisheries 

 Exhibition " he adds, " for the performances of Kao-wang's 

 son." Captain Salvin's birds are the first that have bred in 

 confinement. 



The food of the Cormorant, when wild and at liberty, consists 

 almost entirely of fish ; but in confinement they will eat raw meat, 

 mice, birds, and almost any flesh offered them. They eat their 

 food so ravenously, that the very name of " cormorant " has 

 become symbolical of gluttony. 



With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder ; 

 Light vanity, insatiate Cormorant 

 Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. 



Shakespeare— King Eichard II., II. 1. 



And again — 



Spite of cormorant devouring time. 



Shakespeare— Zove's Labour Lost, I., 1. 



PHALACROCORAX GRACULUS— Shag. 



The Cormorant on high 

 Wheels from the deep and screams along the land. 



Thomson— Winter. 



The Shag is very like the Black Cormorant ; but its smaller 

 size, and the prevailing green colour of its plumage, serve to 

 distinguish it, and have, indeed, given it the name of the Small or 

 Green Cormorant. It is a very rare visitor to Herefordshire. 

 There is but one well-authenticated instance of its coming here. 

 On October nth, 1876, an uncommon bird was seen to alight, on 

 the louvres of one of the windows in the steeple of All Saints' 

 Church, in the centre of Hereford. It was fired at from the 

 Bowling Green garden, but neither hit nor frightened away. The 

 key of the tower was obtained, and the exhausted bird was knocked 

 down with a pole, while attemptmg to start on a fresh flight. It 

 was a male bird of the first year, and it is now preserved in 



