CORMORANT. G53 



fisheSj some half a ])Ound in wciglit, in various stages of decomposition. 

 When we first came up the nests were blaek with birds ; but as we approached 

 they rose^ and after Hying round for some little time, alighted on the lake. 

 Whilst we remained detachments of Cormorants frequently came up to 

 watch our movements. Not far off was a colony of Spoonbills, and we 

 passed several small outlying colonies of Cormorants, who had built their 

 nests in the small willow bushes growing in the marsh. The date was the 

 23rd of May, and the nests had been robbed of their eggs twice a week 

 for some time. 



The Cormorant, however, is able, like the Heron, to alter the date of its 

 breeding according to circumstances. In 1883 the Cormorants on the 

 Lower Danube had fresh eggs on the 5th of June. The nests were built 

 in pollard willows, not far from a large colony of Herons. The country 

 for miles round was under water, which was six feet deep or more under 

 the nests. The birds have learnt that they cannot breed with safety until 

 the snows of the Alps and the Carpathians begin to melt fast enough to 

 flood the country. The nests were large structures built principally of 

 sticks and generally placed in the main forks of the pollard willows, only a 

 foot or two above the level of the flood. The Cormorant looks altogether 

 out of place perched in a tree, especially on the somewhat slender branches 

 of the willows. 



I am indebted to my friend the late Mr. Charles Doncaster, of Sheffield, 

 for the following interesting account of the breeding of the Cormorant in 

 South Wales : — 



^'The Bird-Rock near Towyn is a rock looking at a distance rather like 

 the top of one of the Langdale Pikes. It is precipitous for about 400 or 

 500 feet from the summit, the bottom being loose shingle. On an over- 

 hanging rock at the summit I counted on the 19th June, 1869, thirty 

 Cormorants' nests from this one point of view. This rock being three 

 miles from the sea, the nests are made of sticks and twigs instead of sea- 

 weed, and lined with a little fresh green herbage. One bird, having 

 apparently some sense of the beautiful, had pulled up a long spike of fox- 

 glove flower, and twisted it round the nest as a lining. Of six nests in sight 

 containing eggs five had two and one had three eggs. One old bird 

 sitting on her nest looked up contemptuously at me and would not move 

 when a stone bounded from the rock above it, except to stand up, showing 

 its large webbed feet and two eggs in the nest. In some nests there 

 was one young bird, many had two, and one had three. The old birds 

 were clumsy at alighting on the ledges. When flying against the wind, 

 just before perching, they moved from side to side, making a loud noise 

 with their wings, like a gust of wind." 



The most interesting colony of Cormorants in trees which I have seen 

 is on an island in Lough Cooter, near Gort, in the south of Galway. It 



