50 Cormorants and Guillemots. 



being found in the river Ouzel,* near Fenny Stratford in Bucking- 

 hamshire, which is certainl}' rather remarkable, as the place is 

 about sixty miles from the nearest coast, and the stream is in no 

 place more than eighteen or twenty feet in width. We also have 

 an instance of a cormorant being seen to perch on King's College 

 Chapel, Cambridge, doubtless, says the narrator, mistaking the 

 building for a rock. 



Cormorants will even build their nest on trees far inland, as 

 proved by numerous instances, but we have no instance of the same 

 peculiarity in the guillemot. 



In his remarks on the cormorant, Mr. Morris observes, that 

 owing to his remarkable strength and activity, "he is never be- 

 calmed,t wind-bound, or without the weather- gauge." One point 

 he seems hardly to have brought out sufficiently, and this is the 

 peculiarity in the birds flight, inasmuch that he is unable to rise 

 from the water " with the wind," but is compelled to do so against 

 it. This peculiarity is taken advantage of by boatmen and others, 

 who wish to get a shot at a cormorant. The boat is put before the 

 wind and is run down upon the unfortunate bird, who, though he 

 perceives his danger, is forced to rise head to wind, i.e., to come 

 straight towards the boat, and thus to give a fair shot to anyone 

 who is on the look out for him. 



We see less of the guillemot than of the cormorant for the 

 simple reason, that, with the exception of the two or three months 

 of the breeding season, they remain far out at sea. At these times 

 they assemble with thousands of other birds on various points 

 along our English coast. But although their numbei's are exceed- 

 inglj' great, no disorder or confusion occurs. Each species of bird 

 builds on a separate ledge of rock, so that we never find cormorants 

 building on the same ledge with guillemots, or puffins with razor- 

 bills, and in this manner order and regularity is maintained among 

 a large and apparently disorderly community. 



It may be as well to notice here that we generally hear the 

 common guillemot spoken of as the foolish guillemot. The name 

 has been given them from the fact that when sitting on their eggs 

 they will suffer themselves to be approached and taken by hand. 

 But as some people have well observed, this is rather a proof of 

 fidelity than stupidity. 



One of the great peculiarities of these birds is that they make 

 no attempt at a nest, but deposit a single egg, which is 

 wonderfully large in proportion to the size of the bird, on the 

 bare rock. Now we might naturally suppose that these eggs would 

 be likely to roll about or get blown over the rock by the action of 

 the wind, and so be destroyed ; but if we examine the egg of the 



• Vide " Morris's British Birds," vol. vi., p. 23. t Ibid., vol. vi., p. 03. 



