16 THE CORMORANT. 



tained them. These nests were composed of thick 

 sticks, plants from the rocks, grass, ketlocks which 

 had gone to seed, and a little wool. There were 

 four young birds in one, three eggs in another, two 

 in a third, and one newly laid in a fourth. The 

 shell of the cormorant's eggs is incrusted with a 

 white chalky substance, which is easily scraped off 

 with your penknife, and then you get at the true 

 colour of the shell ; the outside of which is of a 

 whitish green, and the inside of a green extremely 

 delicate and beautiful. The egg is oblong in shape, 

 and you find it small for the size of the bird. The 

 four young cormorants were unfledged, and covered 

 with a black down. Their long necks, and long 

 wing-bones, gave them a grotesque, and an almost 

 hideous appearance. They would have been of 

 service to the renowned Callot, when he was making 

 his celebrated sketch of the Temptations of St. 

 Anthony. There came from the nests a fetid smell, 

 so intolerable, that you might have fancied you had 

 got among Virgil's Harpies; or that you were 

 inhaling exhalations from the den of Cacus. No- 

 thing could have been more distressing to your 

 nasal sensibilities. 



It is remarkable that on the Raincliff not a kitti- 

 wake is seen to alight ; and scarcely ever observed 

 to fly close past it. I saw no signs that this bird 

 had ever made its nest here. An attentive natu- 

 ralist, who would take up his quarters in this neigh- 

 bourhood, and visit the coast every day during the 

 breeding season, might possibly be able to discover 

 the cause why the kittiwake, which is seen in such 



