CHAPTER VI 



Cormorants Rapacity of Swallowing powers Prototypes of heraldry As 

 food Sparrow pie and other dainties Shags. 



A FEW Cormorants were always present on the lake, 

 irrespective of season, although they do not breed here. 

 Their numbers varied from perhaps a dozen to about half 

 that number, some of them putting on the conspicuous 

 white thigh-patches and grey necks in spring, 1 yet appearing 

 to be resident and not to depart for breeding quarters. 

 Most of them were immature, showing more or less white 

 upon the breast, a mark of adolescence which some 

 individuals do not lose for several years. Their usual 

 roosting places were a large oak between the road and the 

 lake near Llan-y-cil, or on the trees on the Llafar promon- 

 tory, and these were whitened with their droppings and 

 conspicuous a long way off. Beneath them the scales of 

 perch and roach, or rudd, were always to be recognised 

 amongst their castings ; once or twice I found the mutilated 

 remains of gwyniad, and once at least an eel. Amongst the 

 mass of often partially comminuted bones and scales, it is 

 not easy to identify the victims, but even a cursory 

 examination suffices to show what large fish are often 

 swallowed. The stretching capacity of a Cormorant's throat 

 is, indeed, remarkable. I have seen a sea trout of nearly 

 2 Ibs. taken from the maw of one shot on a tidal river, and 

 large whiting are swallowed with ease. On the sea-coast 

 flat fish form a large proportion of the birds' ordinary bill 



1 These portions of a Cormorant's plumage are particularly worthy of 

 attention, more especially the white-tipped feathers on the thigh. Some of 

 the white tips appear to be developed on the dark feathers after the latter are 

 fully grown, and to drop off when no longer required as special adornments 

 of the plumage. 



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