SANDWICH-TERN. 109 



288. SHAG. (Phalacrocorax cristatus). 



Green Cormorant, Crested Cormorant, Crested Snag. A 

 smaller bird than the last, but easily distinguishable by that and it ^ 

 prevailing green colour. As to habits and haunts the differences 

 are not great. The Shags are said to breed lower down on the 

 rocks than the Cormorant, and the nests are principally com- 

 posed of sea weed and grasses. The eggs are three to five in 

 number, and covered with the same incrustation as those of the 

 Cormorant, and equally removable. White at first, they soon 

 become as soiled and stained as those of the Grebes. 

 289. GANNET.-(/$Wtf^s^). 



Solan Goose. Common enough in certain localities, though 

 the localities in which they occur vary with the season. When 

 the breeding time comes round, they congregate in hosts of 

 many thousands at some half-dozen different stations, particularly 

 affected by them on different parts of our coasts. During the 

 breeding season they become exceedingly tame, and will even 

 suffer themselves to be touched. They make their nests of a 

 large mass of sea weed and dry grass, on rather than in which they 

 lay each one single egg, of no very considerable size. This, 

 when first laid, is white or bluish-white, (the colour being due 

 to an incrustation similar to that of the Cormorant's egg), but 

 soon becomes soiled and stained. 



v. LAEnm 



290. CASPIAN TERN. (Sterna Caspia). 

 The first member of the last Family of British birds, compris- 

 ing many birds of habits and peculiarities as widely distinct, when 

 it is remembered they are all water-birds, from those of the two 

 Families last under notice, as is readily conceivable. The Grebes, 

 Divers, Cormorants, all gifted with wonderful powers of diving; the 

 Gulls and Terns incapable of diving an inch : the latter, buoyant and 

 sitting as lightly on the water as a cork ; the former deep -sunken 

 in the water, and seeming to require almost an effort to support 

 themselves on the surface at all. The contrast is certainly 

 sufficiently striking, without taking into account that the one 

 group has immense power of flight, and exercises it ; and the 

 others seem to have little inclination to use their wings at all, 

 more than is absolutely necessary. The handsome and large 

 Tern, specially under notice, does not breed in this country. 

 but is known to inhabit the coast of some parts of the European 

 continent, at no great distance from our own shores. 



291. SAND-WICH TERN. (Sterna Canti*<x?j. 

 This bird has been noticed as breeding in several -different 



