198 0)1 the Occurrence of some of the Rarer Species of Birds 



visitors to our shores^ and are most amusing little fellows in their 

 manners and ways. They breed in the Christchurch district, coming 

 in March, and leaving again in September. They are solely and 

 entirely sea birds j and I was much surprised and pleased when one 

 of our labourers brought me down a bird which had puzzled hina 

 entirely. One of the carters had caught it on a high-lying fallow 

 in our parish, and it had bitten his fingers so hard that he had 

 killed it. It was then brought down to me to decide upon, and it 

 turned out to be a young Puffin, which must have wandered terribly 

 out of its way, to find a final resting-place in my collection. It 

 was of full size, but a bird of the year, and was caught in the autumn 

 of 1883. 



P/iaUcrocorax Carbo. " The Cormorant.''^ Everyone knows the 

 Cormorant, or Shag, that has ever visited our coasts and has an eye 

 for birds. They breed freely wherever there is an unmolested rock 

 that is suited to them, and from thence often make expeditions up 

 .the rivers inland. 1 have a young bird that was killed in the parish 

 in company with two others ; and about five years ago I noticed 

 another, which hung about the place for some days. On August 

 •13th of this year a Cormorant was shot on the Mere stream ; and 

 about a week after two others were killed at Stourton ; all young 

 birds. When I was on the Blackwater, near Fermoy, in Ireland, 

 last year, I noticed that they came daily right up the river, some 

 .thirty miles or more up the stream, to carry on their fishing depre- 

 dations, and very successful they seemed to be. Hart mentioned 

 to me that in the autumn of 1875 a gunner, named James Derham, 

 killed fifteen Cormorants, with a right and left shot. Two of them 

 escaped, but the other thirteen were bagged, and weighed in the 

 mass 841bs. — a pretty good return, in quantity, if not in quality, 

 for an ounoe or two of shot. 



Phalacrocorax Cristatus. " The Crested Cormorant,'^ or Green 

 Shag. This is the bird which is generally known by the name of 

 Shag. They are not so plentiful as the foregoing species, but more 

 slender in shape, and of a far more beautiful colouring, the adult 

 bird having an entire dress of beautiful glossy green. It occurs 

 .occasionally a,t Christchurch; and in 1870 was breeding on the 



