Jones — On Birds of the Washington Coast. 23 



birds were anywhere near ready to leave the nests seems con- 

 clusive that only one brood is reared in a season. The nesting 

 season was too far advanced to afford any opportunity for 

 studying nest building or egg deposition. 



The eggs are of the usual cormorant type — a greenish shell 

 color heavily overlaid with lime so that the shell color rarely 

 • shows. Nests containing both eggs and young were often so 

 filthy that nothing in them could long remain white. Young 

 birds had the habit of throwing out the recently acquired meal 

 of regurgitated fish, and they were as indifferent to the place 

 where it fell as any other victim of iiial de in>er. The vicinity 

 of such nests we avoided. The young birds did not simply 

 throw out the pellet of fish, but after getting it up as far as 

 the pouch they turned their heads violently from side to side 

 until the offending pellet had been thrown out, no matter 

 whom it might hit. 



The colony shown in figure 1 was shared by a few Cali- 

 fornia Murres who occupied the spaces between nests which 

 were level enough to keep an egg from rolling into the 

 water, or off from the ledge. There was no apparent discord 

 in such a mixed colony, even though the Murres were within 

 reach of the weapons of the Cormorants. In one other place 

 the same conditions prevailed. I could discover no reason for 

 regarding this as a case of true commensalism. If there was 

 any benefit derived from this association it must have been to 

 the advantage of the Murres. 



Besides these two nesting sites there were a few small ledges 

 on the ocean side of the island where we found nests of this 

 species, usually not more than two or three nests together. 

 Here there was some distant intimacy with Baird's Cormo- 

 rants, but the different manner of nesting of these two species 

 precludes the possibility of any competition between them. 



The perpetual noises made by the birds of the island seri- 

 ously interfered with any careful study of the various notes 

 of these Cormorants. When the old birds were disturbed or 

 alarmed they gave vent to a spluttering squawk and often a 

 low grunting. The young yelped something like a puppy, 

 particularly wlien they were calling for food. They were 



