42 CORMORANTS 



turned to thoughts of love, and it behoved him to call 

 the attention of his observant partner to the one spark 

 of gaudy colour which he displays in the season of 

 courtship the scarlet comb round the eye. 



Suddenly, as I sat there, the moor became alive with 

 flying grouse, scores and scores of them, some hurry- 

 ing up the strath, low along the heather, others flying 

 at a great height across the valley to the hills beyond 

 the river. ' An eagle ! ' methought, and, looking up, I 

 saw one dark against the blue sky and floating clouds, 

 circling on broad, rounded wings, over the far-off 

 crest of the hill. A mere speck, yet every grouse on 

 that breadth of moor had detected it at once, sought 

 safety in instant flight, knowing that the eagle does not 

 take his prey on the wing, like the chivalrous pere- 

 grine; but, like Leech's French sportsman, 'he wait 

 till he stop.' 



XII 



In the same strath where I witnessed this scene took 



place a laughable adventure with another 

 Cormorants 



bird of prey. Unlike the eagles and others 



of the nobler species living by rapine, cormorants show 

 no diminution in numbers, and are probably as 

 numerous now as at any previous period in the world's 

 history. I have seen a flight of cormorants, consisting 

 of four or five thousand individuals, flying from the 

 great lake of Karle, between Mounts Pelion and Ossa, 

 to the Danube ; and as these voracious birds are almost 

 cosmopolitan in habit and indifferent to temperature 

 (so that there be plenty of fish), it is almost futile to 



