172 MUTTON BIRDS 



able number of Frilled and White-throated 

 Shags had bred during that season. 



Calamity of some sort befell both this 

 rookery, and another many miles distant, 

 between the end of September and mid- 

 October. In each, on the former date, we 

 knew of certain nests. In the first a par- 

 ticular Pied Shag was on eggs ; in the second a 

 Frilled Shag was sitting hard. Twenty-six 

 days later these marked nests were vacant 

 of eggs or young. There was also a 

 suspicious absence of other nestlings which 

 could not in the month have reached the power 

 of flight. That the rookeries had been raided 

 was. of course, the first and most obvious sup- 

 position, but friendly overtures had been made 

 to the Mammon of Unrighteousness, and my 

 friends of the launch also had let the mill- 

 workers know that we particularly wanted the 

 birds let alone. As in all other cases people had 

 been exceedingly obliging, I cannot suppose that 

 on this one occasion there should have been an 

 exception. The shaggeries were miles apart. 

 There were, moreover, no signs of dead or 

 maimed birds, no derelict eggs or chicks rotting 

 on the nests, neither were there shot marks 

 perforating the leaves of the branches in close 

 proximity to the nests. I have never yet been 

 able to solve the puzzle in any way quite satis- 

 factory to myself, but two nests only remained 

 in use. Something had gone wrong.* 



*It is whilst watching the manners and customs of these bird 

 communities, that we realize the disabilities of our own race 

 and none, I think, will deny that mankind might with advantage 

 have been hatched from the shell. Oology would have been given 

 a new interest, the fancy of the lad and the whim of the collector 

 would have been raised to the high regions of science. 



