COMMON CORMORANT. 455 



in some instances the birds were sitting drying their wings 

 within thirty yards of the public road. I saw no green 

 cormorants among them; nor could I discern a single bird 

 of either species on the water all being in a state of rest. 

 A very large proportion of these Cormorants appeared to be 

 birds of the year; but I could not learn with certainty where 

 they had been bred. From their extraordinary numbers within a 

 comparatively limited space, it was evident that they had located 

 themselves in a good fishing ground. Several times I observed 

 two or three birds rise together as I drove along the road which 

 skirts the shore, and after attaining to a considerable height, steer 

 in a straight line across the hills, and I concluded they were 

 flying to some favourite inland roosting place. On the Ayrshire 

 coast there are several breeding stations on the line of rocks over- 

 hanging the sea between Ballantrae and the entrance to Loch 

 Ryan. The colonies which occupy these nesting places are very 

 conspicuous when viewed from the sea. When cruising past I 

 have been amused with their odd gestures, as they turned their 

 heads from side to side in evident wonderment. On the white- 

 washed and comparatively flat surface of the rock, every bird stood 

 out in bold relief; some were half raised from the nests, and others, 

 apparently males, were in rows behind, stretching out their necks 

 and balancing themselves on their tails and awkward splay feet. 

 On these occasions, indeed, they display so much fear, mingled 

 with curiosity, that it quite upsets one's gravity to look at them. 

 Our skipper uttered more than his own sentiments one day when 

 he turned round and said : " I'd give a shilling to hear them beg- 

 gars speak."* When the wind is blowing off shore, it is by no 

 means pleasant to be assailed by the offensive odours which are 

 wafted on board; the abomination is only exceeded when on a hot 

 day you venture within the precincts of the nursery itself. In such 

 a place one can almost understand the aversion with which the 

 bird is regarded by many persons who have given it a bad 

 character. Various poets have done what they could to foster 

 this prejudice by describing it as unclean, while Milton goes a 



* The minister of Ardnamurchan is reported to have said the same of the 

 St. Kilda puffins, but on inquiring at the skipper whether he had read that 

 gentleman's writings, he said he was only partly familiar with his Lies of 

 Ancient Rome, from which I inferred that he had but a confused knowledge 

 of the two Macaulays. 



