L X X V 1 1 1. CORMORANT. 



(Phalacrocorax carbo.) 



DRAWN from life in the Zoological Gardens. A gentleman was 

 trying at the time to photograph them, but they fidgeted too 

 much. It was before the kodak had come into use. So my 

 drawing was made use of at a meeting of the Zoological Society. 



"June 6, 1882. Professor Flower, LL.D., F.E.S., President, in the 

 chair. The Secretary called attention to the curious way in which the young 

 Cormorants, lately hatched in the Gardens, were fed by the parent bird, and 

 exhibited a drawing by Mrs Hugh Blackburn, taken on the 9th ult., illus- 

 trating this subject. The Cormorants deposited by Captain Salvin in the 

 autumn of 1881 had paired in March last, and built a nest of sticks on a 

 stump in the enclosure called the 'Gull Pond.' Two young ones were 

 hatched on the 22nd April last, after four weeks' incubation, both parents 

 taking turns in the nest. The young birds were at first naked, but soon 

 became covered with black down-plumage, whence they were now beginning 

 to moult into their adult dress. As would be seen by the illustration, the 

 parents fed the young ones by allowing them to poke their heads far down 

 into the parents' throats and to extract the semi-digested fish from the 

 stomach.'' 



Captain Salvin used to keep Cormorants trained for fishing. 

 Unluckily they died before I had an opportunity of seeing them 

 at work. They are now beautifully stuffed, and set up in the 

 Hancock Museum at Newcastle, with the little leather collars 

 round their necks to prevent them swallowing the fish they 

 caught. 



There are many Cormorants here in autumn. They abound 

 in the island of Heiskar, where there must be a great supply of 

 fish to support both them and the numerous seals that frequent 

 it. Cormorants build on the ledges of high rocks at the Land's 

 End in Cornwall and on the cliffs in Barra. 



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