and outstretched neck: his legs dangling down. But no sooner 
is he well on the way than he hauls in his neck till the head is 
drawn close to the body, and straightens out his legs till they 
extend behind him like a pair of streamers. Henceforth his flight 
is easy and graceful enough. This is the bird which was so much 
prized in the old days of “ hawking.” The invention of the gun 
ended this most fascinating form of sport. 
Let us turn now, for a little while, from moor and wood 
and fen, to the sea-shore, and, for choice, to a rock-bound coast 
with towering cliffs. Here you will find a number of species 
which will never be found inland. They love the sea, whether it 
be shimmering in the sun of a blazing June day, smooth as a mill- 
pond, or in a fury of thundering billows, lashed by a roaring gale 
in bleak December. The bottle-green shag is one of these. You 
cannot mistake him. Perched on a rock he sits upright, and, in 
the spring, wears a crest upon his head. On the water he floats 
with the body well down, and every few moments disappears 
with a spring into the depths, for his never-ending meal of fish and 
crabs. His flight, just above the water, is strong and rapid. 
His cousin, the cormorant, is a conspicuously larger bird, with a 
bronze-coloured plumage. In the breeding season his head has a 
hoary appearance, due to the presence of numerous filamentous 
feathers, known as ‘ filoplumes”; while the throat is white, 
and there is a large white patch on the thigh. He has a habit, 
102 
