98 OUR RARER BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS. 



a flash of lightning, her white rump showing up 

 well against the black rocks, and thus easily 

 distinguishing her from her sister the Stock Dove. 

 The nest had originally contained two eggs, 

 but a Grey Crow hovering round the neighbour- 

 hood, and a sucked egg on a crag close by, told 

 their own tale. 



Some of the nests which I examined were 

 made almost entirely of dried seaweed, with an 

 inner lining of dead grass ; and others consisted 

 simply of a few roots gathered from an adjoining 

 field, with a very scanty lining of dry herbage. 



The bird is not at all loved in the Western 

 Isles, on account of the harm it does to farm 

 crops. 



SHAG. 



THIS bird is common enough round our coasts, 

 wherever suitable breeding accommodation is obtain- 

 able. It is a lover of caves and crevices in 

 maritime cliffs. I have found it nesting in caves, 

 vertical and horizontal fissures, under loose boulders, 

 on shelves that were sheltered by overhanging 

 crags, and in perfectly exposed corners, all within 

 one hundred yards of each other. It is easily dis- 

 tinguished from its near relative, the Common 

 Cormorant, by its smaller size and green colour. 



The outer structure of its nest is generally 

 composed of seaweed, but this is sometimes supple- 

 mented by sticks and twigs, and I have seen even 

 the skeleton and wings of a Kittiwake doing duty 

 in this respect. The interior is lined with grass, 

 and at one breeding station which I visited in the 

 Shetland Islands, the birds appeared to have taken 



