BIRDS. 159 



food. They feed chiefly on sillocks or young saithe, which 

 are this year very scarce on our coasts. These birds in some 

 places are so tame that they are coming up to the houses in 

 the country and feeding with the tame birds. A gentleman 

 walking out along the shore came upon two Cormorants and 

 a Shag sitting up under a ledge of rocks. They seemed to pay 

 no attention to him. He held out his stick, when the Shag 

 gripped it, at the time making a hissing sound. He went up 

 above them and forced them into the sea. But they seemed 

 to be in a semi-conscious state, falling over and over before 

 they managed to get to the water." x 



Young Cormorants remain blind from a fortnight to three 

 weeks after hatching. 



Phalacrocorax graculus (L.). Shag, 



Very abundant everywhere, breeding in most of the suitable 

 localities, and collecting in immense flocks in the autumn in 

 the bays and firths amongst the islands. 



Shags nest in very low rocks, especially in the geos and 

 caves, but they require to have deep water immediately under- 

 neath, into which they can drop at the approach of danger 

 instead of having to fly overhead. Their nests are composed of 

 seaweed, and we have often watched them carrying great 

 streamers of tangle, which they dive for, to the rocks. They 

 have the power of resting for a short time on the water with 

 their wings spread out to dry. 



Shags do not apparently breed their first year, nor do they 

 assume the adult plumage then, as numbers of immature birds 

 may be seen at the breeding season sitting on the rocks or fish- 

 ing in the firths. Probably it was from their different plumages 

 that Messrs. Baikie and Heddle founded their third species, but 

 in a pencil note by Mr. Eobert Heddle, one of the authors, 

 he remarks that " in all probability P. graculus is a synonym of 

 P. cristatus" from which it seems that he changed his opinion 

 about this new species after the book was published. 



1 For another instance of Cormorants starving see under Grey Seal, p. 71. 



