54 LONDON BIRDS 



A promising young Cormorant, hatched in the spring 

 of 1894, was, in the following January, drowned beneath 

 the ice under the eyes of the keeper, who was power- 

 less to help him. 



Since 1894 the birds have not uniformly prospered 

 in their nesting arrangements. A single nestling 

 was hatched in the first week of August 1895, but 

 only to disappear a few days later in circumstances 

 suspiciously suggestive of cannibalism. An attempt to 

 hatch a second brood was unsuccessful. 



Unamiable and evil-smelling as his best friends must 

 admit him to be, the Cormorant has a claim on science 

 which has not perhaps yet received quite the recogni- 

 tion it deserves. We are told by the learned that the 

 birds of our day are the lineal representatives of reptiles 

 of far bygone times. The pedigree never seems less 

 impossible than in the presence of the little black, 

 sprawling, slimy, and to all appearance four-legged 

 creature which comes out of a Cormorant's egg when 

 the shell is cracked from within. 



Some Guillemots and Puffins were brought at the 

 same time as the Cormorants, but, owing to the difficulty 

 in procuring natural food, did not live long. 



Of the last family of all, the Shortwings the con- 

 necting-link between birds and fishes we have at 

 times plenty of a single species, the little Grebe, 

 ' Dabchicks,' lively little fellows, the quickest and best, 

 perhaps, of our English divers, as much at home at the 

 bottom as above the water. Of late years they have 

 not been coming in such flocks as formerly, but in 1870 



