70 



scratches and furrows, as if deposited in a soft state ; in one specimen 

 this coating is two millimetres in thickness, nearly one twelfth of an 

 inch ; so that the egg, though emptied of its contents, feels nearly as 

 heavy as an ordinary one that has not been blown. In shape there 

 is a greater tendency to elongation or flattening of the ellipse than in 

 the Pelicans. The color when first laid is a chalky white, which soon 

 becomes a dirty drab. 



Four eggs selected from many hundreds gave the following measure- 

 ments: 89 x45imill. — 84x52 — 66x48— 671x42. 



Phalacrocorax carbo, Linn. On the 26th of June I had the pleasure 

 of visiting, for the first time, a breeding-place of this species. It was 

 situated on the south side of the rocky wall that bounds the gulf at 

 Wapitaguan, and is probably much the same as it was twenty-seven 

 years ago at the time of Audubon's visit ; it extends for nearly half a 

 mile along the face of the cliff, which is there from a hundred to a 

 hundred and fifty feet in height, not perfectly vertical, but falling 

 back slightly towards the land as it rises. Although not by any 

 means easy of access, it is yet much less dangerous than Gannet Rock, 

 as the smallest projection can be depended on, and the rough surface of 

 the granite enables one to crawl over it without fear of slipping. As the 

 eggs are not considered worth collecting, and it requires a good deal 

 of time and patience to ascend the precipice, the birds had not, I 

 think, been disturbed before my visit. The nests were built precisely 

 as described by Audubon, and placed wherever there was any room 

 for them. Some of them contained half-grown young, and others 

 were but just finished, but by far the larger number either young or 

 eggs that were nearly hatched. I did not see a single bird that had 

 more than the merest trace of the long white feathers of the neck 

 and thighs. The full number of eggs is four, and, excepting when 

 first laid, they are filthy in the extreme. In shape they are more 

 regular than in the Florida Cormorants, but less so than in the double- 

 crested, the only species of this genus with whose eggs I am suffi- 

 ciently acquainted to properly compare them. The calcareous coating 

 of this egg, as also of that of the dilophus, is much softer than that of 

 the Floridanus, and can readily be rubbed off with the fingers ; in some 

 specimens it is quite thick, and is frequently deposited in irregular 

 sheets, or even lumps. The birds were very tame, and, though they 

 flew off on our approach, returned to their nests the moment we 

 moved to another spot. On alighting on the sides of the precipice 

 they cling to it with their tail and claws, much like swifts or wood- 

 peckers, and before alighting almost always swooped down nearly to the 

 surface of the water and then rose in a curved line to the surface of 

 the cUff, without moving their wings, and almost with the regularity 

 of a pendulum. Though these birds breed at many other points on 

 the coast, I did not find them in as large numbers anywhere else. The 

 number at Wapitaguan was from 4,000 to 5,000. 



