INCONSISTENT CORMORANTS 11 



One should thus be very careful in discrediting 

 the observations of others if they do not happen to 

 agree with one's own, especially if such were 

 recorded many years ago ; a record is not necessarily 

 bad because it is ancient, nor good because it is 

 new. Even one's own observations may contradict 

 each other at times, as happened to me in my 

 experience of our wild colony of the small Indian 

 Cormorant (Phalacrocorax javanicus) in the Calcutta 

 Zoo. These birds came in the evenings to their 

 roosting-place on a wooded island in a large pond, 

 and usually swooped down, Swallow-fashion, to take 

 a drink on the wing before going up to roost. 

 This was an unusual feat for a Cormorant to per- 

 form (although it must be remembered that this 

 species is a light-built, long-tailed bird of only the 

 size of a Teal), and, from the way in which the 

 birds began to gape before touching the water, 

 and often involuntarily checked their way so much 

 that they had to settle after all, they evidently found 

 it a difficult one. It so happened, too, that once 

 for some time they gave the habit up, and settled 

 in flocks in the water to drink in the normal way, 

 though they afterwards resumed the custom of 

 the flying sip ; and I can well imagine that any 

 one who had seen them thus drink sitting would 

 put down my record of the flying drink as most 

 far-fetched and out of all congruity with the 

 structure and habits of a Cormorant. 



Very likely the birds had adopted a really new 

 habit, in drinking flying ; at any rate, we know 



