346 CORMORANT GROUP 



in the far north, and visit India, Africa, and Australia in the winter. 

 As a matter of fact, they breed throut;jhout this extensive area, the 

 British Museum collection containini^ ei^J-^s from ret^ions so far apart 

 and so diverse in climate as Greenland, southern India, and Australia 

 and Tasmania. Why one bird should have a cosmopolitan brcedini,'- 

 ran<;e, while a second must needs travel thousands of miles to produce 

 and rear its youn<^ is one of the unsolved m)steries of bird-life, which 

 merits the best attention of ornitholoi^ists. 



Althout^h to a threat dei^ree a bird of the .sea-coast, where in this 

 country it breeds in colonics, the cormorant, cspeciall)' durint; winter, 

 is often to be met with on the banks of rivers a loni^ distance inland ; 

 and in India it habitually frequents freshwaters far distant from the 

 ocean, where it may be seen either alone or in company. In the 

 British Islands, where they are much more common on the east coast 

 of the mainland to the northward of Flamboroui;h Head than farther 

 south or than on the opposite side of the country, cormorants usually 

 breed on rocks, selectini^ as their resorts in some ca.ses islands in 

 inland lakes. In certain districts, however, more especial!}' in Ireland, 

 they resort for nestin<4-purposes to trees, which althou_t;h frequently 

 low, may be of considerable heit^ht. In India trees L^rowini; in or near 

 water form, indeed, the i^eneral nestini^-resorts of cormorants ; the 

 birds con;4reL;atinL^ in vast colonies, and makinij^ the ijround below look 

 as though it had been splashed with whitewash, as is the case with the 

 rock.s to which these birds resort in our own islands. 



In this country, at any rate, cormorants appear to subsist ex- 

 clusively on fishes, which they capture by diving, when they propel 

 themselves by their feet alone. That they consume an enormous 

 quantity is quite evident ; and as these and other fish-eating sea-birds 

 appear to be on the increase, as the result of legislative protection, it 

 will probably ere long be found necessary to inquire to what extent 

 they diminish the available supply of food-fishes. Young cormorants 

 take the food brought to the nest by their parents by thrusting their 

 heads into the mouths of the latter and seizing with their beaks such 

 fish as they can find in the crops. The recent exhibition in London 

 of a party of trained birds has rendered us all familiar with the fact 

 that tame cormorants are employed in China and Japan, as well as in 

 some parts of India, to capture fish for their owners. How large a 

 weight of fish a cormorant will consume in a day does not appear to 

 be ascertained ; but that it is very considerable ma)' be inferred from 

 the fact that these birds will swallow quite large eels at a single meal. 

 Sometimes, indeed, they will attempt to swallow eels too large for their 



