JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



we may often hear the incubating birds 

 underneath uttering their cry "Got-any- 

 terbacker" or sometimes it sounds more 

 like "Go-to-Gehenna," which latter is 

 prob.ibly more appropriately descriptive 

 of the feelings of the birds. 



On reaching in and grasping them, 

 they either make no resistance or give a 

 few feeble and harmless pecks, and on 

 being hauled out into the light they spit 

 forth a teaspoonful of a clear, musky- 

 smelling oil which usually is so directed 

 as to hit one's clothing and perfume it 

 for months to come. 



On being released they stumble help- 

 lessly at hap-hazard over the ground, 

 running into every possible obstacle, 

 but if tossed into the air tliey head out 

 to sea to return no more till night. At 

 night the birds stumble out of their 

 nests, uttering their cries, and, after 

 flopping blindly over the land and bump- 

 ing into every weed and spear of grass 

 in the vicinity, they finally manage to 

 rise into the air and sail out over the 

 water with perfect ease and grace. The 

 birds which have been out at sea feed- 

 ing all da}' are now returning and the 

 air is fairly swarming with them. 



The first time I ever visited Seal 

 Island I secured a few of the incubating 

 birds, and dissection showed all to be 

 males, but since then I have found by 

 taking otlier specimens that both sexes 

 were represented among tlie incubating 

 birds. 



While these birds are not numerous 

 off the coast in winter and u few careful 

 observers have failed to find them, yet 

 I have been told by many fishermen that 

 the}' have found Cary Chickens outside 

 every month in the year, and there is no 

 reason for doubting their statements. 

 This species has no enemies to speak of 



and is not persecuted by man, so their 

 colonies are holding their own or in- 

 creasing. 



Double-crested Cormorant. Plialo- 

 crocorax dilophus (Swain). Although 

 P. carbo and P. dilophus are cojumon 

 fall, winter and spring, all of the former 

 and nearly all of the latter species de- 

 part for the north at the approach of the 

 breeding season. The only Shag rook- 

 ery known to me along the entire Maine 

 coast is a very small colony of the 

 Double-crested species which breeds on 

 Black Horse Ledge. 



On July ord, 1893, as I approached 

 this ledge about fourteen Shags flew 

 from it. Oh landing and climbing up 

 the sides of this almost perpendicular 

 wall of rock, I found seven nests on 

 narrow shelves near the top of the 

 ledge. The nests were loosely con- 

 structed affairs of sticks and a little 

 seaweed, being very flat, and only four 

 contained eggs. Three of them contain- 

 ed three eggs each and the other con- 

 tained two, the incubation being slight. 

 The nests were all within a radius of ten 

 feet. 



On July 2nd, 1895, there was about 

 an equal number of birds breeding there. 

 Two nests contained complete sets of 

 three eggs, and one nest a single egg. 

 June iiord, 1890, we found a number of 

 Shags on the ledge, but only two nests 

 were to be found. One of these was 

 incomplete and the other showed the 

 imprint of three eggs, and as we after- 

 wards learned that other collectors had 

 been there, the eggs were undoubtedly 

 taken by them. The late breeding date 

 is rather unexplicable, but I learned 

 from fishermen and other collectors Avho 

 have visited this colony that they never 

 have eggs until the last of June or the 



