654 



BRITISH BIRDS. 



is ten miles from the sea as the crow flies, and consists of perhaps fifty 

 nests built on lofty trees, and close to an equally large colony of Rooks. On 

 another island on the same property is a heronry, which is also adjacent to, 

 and more or less blended with, a rookery. 



The eggs of the Cormorant when held up to the light are emerald- green, 

 like those of the Gannet ; the white coat which covers the shell is some- 

 times almost as rough as it is in the Gannet, but the green can always be 

 more or less seen through it in patches. They differ very slightly from 

 eggs of the Gannet, except in being smaller in size and slightly more 

 elongated in shape. They vary in length from 2'9 to 2'4 inch, and in 

 breadth from 1*75 to 1*5 inch. Small eggs of the Cormorant are abso- 

 lutely indistinguishable from large eggs of the Shag. 



In 1882 a pair of Cormorants bred in the Gardens of the Zoological 

 Society of London on a felled tree-stump; and this year Mr. Janse, the 



librarian of the Amsterdam Zoological Gardens (under whose guidance 

 Capt. Elwes and I had the pleasure of visiting the colony of Spoonbills in 



