THE COMING OF SPRING 263 



to his fellow shags and to find out occasion to quarrel 

 with them. I watched the behaviour of one, a tyrant 

 and hooligan, at Gurnard's Head, at a spot where 

 a mass of rocks overlooking the sea has one perfectly 

 flat stone on the top. This stone was a favourite 

 standing-place of the shags on account of its position 

 and flat surface, and it afforded space enough to 

 accommodate a score or more birds. The bird I 

 watched had placed himself in the centre of the flat 

 rock and would not allow another to share it with 

 him. At intervals of a few minutes a cormorant 

 coming up from the sea would settle on it, as 

 he had always or for a long time been accustomed 

 to do, whereupon the John Cocking in possession 

 would twist his snaky head round and glare at him 

 with his malignant emerald-green eyes. If this pro- 

 duced no effect he would open wide his beak and dart 

 his head out towards the intruder just as an irritated 

 adder lunges at you when you are out of his reach. 

 Then, if the new-comer still refused to quit, he would 

 pull himself up erect and hurl his heavy body against 

 the other and send him flying off the rock. The 

 ejected one would then either fly away or find himself 

 a place on the sloping rock among the nine or ten 

 others who had been treated in the same way. Mean- 

 while the ruffian himself would go back to the middle 

 of the stone platform, holding his tail stuck up verti- 

 cally like a staff and turn himself about this way and 

 that as if asking the whole company if there was 

 any other Johnny there who would like to try conclu- 

 sions with him. 



