Vol. XI 



?Sol I Mack ay, Habits of the Double-crested Cormorant . IQ 



It was during my recent trip to Seconnet Point, April, 1892, 

 that I determined to visit the Cormorant Rocks, should the 

 weather and sea be sufficiently favorable for making the trip, it 

 requiring a calm sea and off shore wind in order to effect a land- 

 ing. When other conditions prevail it is a most forbidding and 

 dangerous place to attempt a landing, surrounded as it is with 

 an impassable collar of surging surf and foam, while rising from 

 the centre are the black jagged rocks surrounded by a nearly 

 flat mesa-like apex crowned with a cap of Fusiyama whiteness 

 as it glistens in the sunlight, but not, however, composed like 

 it, of immaculate snow, but of lime. Such a day as I had 

 wished and waited for was April 19, 1S92, and as I rode at 

 anchor in my little boat oft' the seaward side of West Island 

 (which lies oft' the extreme point of Seconnet Point) shooting 

 Scoters, the sea was calm, as it had been for tiie two days pre- 

 viously, and a gentle breeze blowing from the northwest com- 

 pleted the desired requirements. Perceiving a large cat-boat 

 belonging to two Swedish lobster-men coming towards me, I 

 motioned to them to come up in the wind, as I wished to board 

 and speak with them. This they did, and I soon arranged for 

 them and their boat to carry me to the rocks, to remain all day 

 and return to West Island at night. Wishing to go on shore 

 to secure a few things before starting I instructed them to stand 

 oft" and on near the island and I would wave for them to come 

 for me in their small boat when I was ready to start. We filled 

 away about nine o'clock a. m., and just before ten o'clock, we 

 were oft" the rocks. Putting my things into the small boat, one 

 of the men rowed me to the rocks near at hand. After wait- 

 ing awhile for a favorable opportunity to land, for it was break- 

 ing all around, in we went through the surf without taking in 

 scarcely any water and landed on the rocks where I remained 

 until sunset. 



These low lying black rocks have been in the past, and are 

 still, the resort and roosting place of all the Cormorants living in 

 and around these waters, and as they undoubtedly received their 

 name many years ago from such occupancy it may be interesting 

 to know that on a map dated July 20, 1776, which is in an atlas 

 called the 'American Neptune,' published in London in 1776? 

 and surveyed by Des Barres, that these identical rocks are cor- 



