AND OTHER BIRDS 179 



These paths radiate from the middle of the 

 nesting grounds; and, as no Shag can fly 

 upwards, along them the departing birds have 

 to waddle with the most awkward gait imagin- 

 able, stepping high and with legs widely spread 

 apart, and showing at every movement the huge 

 unwieldy webbed feet. The space allowed 

 about each nest, has been regulated by three main 

 considerations firstly, of course, that the birds 

 should have room, just room and no more, to 

 pass out on foot incoming birds arrive invari- 

 ably on the wing, settle on the edge of the nest, 

 and from that stance feed their young, secondly 

 that each Shag should have from its watchtower, 

 or pillar of incubation, sufficient space to defend 

 itself, and as each pair of the breed is at 

 chronic warfare with its kind to threaten con- 

 tiguous birds ; also that there should be room to 

 pluck at and peck wayfarers who, by so much 

 as a fraction of an inch, err from the very centre 

 of the trail. The third factor in the determina- 

 tion of the width of these alleys, it is hard to 

 express without vulgarity, and in decent 

 English. 



Perhaps it may be put thus: that shags as a 

 race never require any kind of aperient or 

 cathartic and then to refer to that passage in 

 * Martin Chuzzlewit' where as Martin the 

 younger lies in his log hut, he is visited by Mr. 

 Hannibal Chollop.* Shags do not spit, but for 

 generations each nestful has learnt to calc'late 

 its distance to an inch. 



*". . . for he felt that Hannibal was going to spit, and his 

 eye, as the song says was upon him. 'You need not regard me, sir," 

 observed Mr. Chollop. complacently, 'I am fever proof and likewise 

 agur. ' 'Mine was a more selfish motive,' said Martin, looking out 



again, 'I was afr.-nd you were going to . ' 'I can calc'late my 



distance, sir,' returned' Mr. Chollop, 'to an inch.' ' 



