OF SHOOTING AND FISHING = 129 
As we approached in the punt, we saw a flock of 
these birds going off, not to return during our visit. 
On landing we were greeted by the gulls. Seeing a 
large weed-built nest on the rock we examined it 
and found that it contained four young cormorants. 
They had very little down, were perfectly black, 
and shone like a kid glove. We found several 
dozen cormorants’ nests on the higher rocks; they 
were close together and some had eggs, while oth- 
ers had birds of different sizes. There were more 
young birds than eggs, so we concluded that they 
were the first to nest, as there were no young gulls 
out, and not many herons. Around the cormo- 
rants’ nests there were numbers of fish bones and 
sometimes dried carp. 
After spending an hour or two exploring, we 
returned to the punt and on the way found what 
was very curious, that many of the young birds 
in the cormorants’ nests were dead. The intensely . 
hot sun shining down on the little black things had 
killed them. Evidently they required their moth- 
er’s protection and their mothers were too shy to 
return while we were there. The eggs of this spe- 
cies are usually of a pale greenish-blue colour, more 
or less covered with a deposit of chalk, but in 
this case, only the very fresh eggs answered the 
description, as nest markings were formed almost 
at once, probably by insects. The spots were 
equally deposited all over the eggs, and those in 
which the incubation period had almost expired, 
were as densely spotted as the eggs of a Scotch 
grouse. One could find a very remarkable series 
