SHAG. 291 



state that it is " occasionally met with, the specimens, 

 which chiefly occur in autumn, being mostly immature." 

 Mr. Lubbock also speaks of it as "very uncommon 

 here."* 



Mr. Stevenson has the following notes of the occur- 

 rence of the shag: "An immature bird killed at Yar- 

 mouth during severe weather, in November, 1854 ; an old 

 bird from Blakeney, in February, 1855 ; and another ex- 

 hibited about the same time in the Norwich Fishmarket. 

 These were no doubt stragglers driven to our coast with 

 other rare fowl by the intensity of the cold that pre- 

 vailed at that time, but I could not hear of a single 

 example having been met with in the still more severe 

 winter of 1860-1. An immature female was also killed 

 at Hingham, on 9th October, 1856." In the " Zoolo- 

 gist" for 1868, p. 1128, Mr. Stevenson writes, "Amongst 

 other effects of the heavy gales, which, commencing on 

 the 1st February, lasted for several days, was the ap- 

 pearance of a fine adult female of this rare visitant on 

 our eastern coast. The bird was sent up to Norwich on 

 the 8th, having been picked up dead on the beach in 

 the neighbourhood of Cromer, and was in most beautiful 

 plumage, the rich bottle-green of its feathers contrast- 

 ing with the bright yellow round the gape of the beak." 

 On the 6th October, 1880, an immature shag, now in 

 Mr. H. M. Upcher's collection, was caught in a fish- 

 net off Beeston. Mr. Gunn received an immature bird, 

 killed on the 22nd of February, 1883, while perched on 

 the spire of Attleborough Church ; and another, killed 

 at Yarmouth, on the 1st March of the same year, 

 described as a " second year bird," passed into the pos- 



* The annotator to Wilkin's edition of Sir T. Browne's works 

 appears to be wrong in supposing the following passage in the 

 " Birds found in Norfolk " is applicable to the crested cormorant or 

 shag. The words are: "besides [i.e., in addition to the com- 

 mon cormorant already mentioned] the rock cormorant, which 

 breedeth in the rocks in northern countries, and cometh to us in 

 winter, somewhat differing from the other in largenesse and 

 whitenesse under the wings." Sir T. Browne's idea evidently was 

 that the " rock cormorant " was distinct from the bird which he 

 knew to breed in trees in Norfolk, and was larger and whiter than 

 that bird ; but this description certainly will not suit the shag. 

 2o2 



