22 Mattingley, Cormorants in Relation to Fishes. f ^™^ , 



•"•^ ' List July 



squabs or nestlings of Cormorants are excellent eating-, and in 

 slayingthem we are simply thVowing away part of our food supply. 

 Why the squabs of Cormorants are so edible is due to the 

 sweet-fleshed food with which they are fed by their parents, 

 which, as before stated, consists of Crustacea, &c. We must also 

 remember that before the advent of the white man in Australia 

 Cormorants preyed upon our fishes, and there was no serious 

 diminution in the fish supply. The fishes were then as plentiful 

 as they ought to have been, and were in the correct quantity so 

 far as the law of nature allowed. White men, in their ignorance, 

 have taken from our waters more fishes than Nature could stand, 

 or have destroyed their spawning grounds by draining them, or 

 have deposited noxious materials into or on to them, or have 

 rooted them up with nets, and have as ignorantly expected 

 Mother Nature to replace them as formerly. But there is a 

 limit, as I have before mentioned, to the reserve fertility of Dame 

 Nature, which, if overstepped, leads to serious trouble in the 

 shape of want of balance. Therefore, see to it that her balance 

 is kept level, and by restocking our waters with those varieties 

 of fishes which we are continually abstracting from them, 

 prevent the undue displacement of Nature's balance. My 

 remarks so far have been applicable to the inland-breeding 

 Cormorants, that nest principally in trees. The following notes 

 apply equally to both the inland-breeding forms as well as the 

 sea and rock-nesting Cormorants, such as PJialacrocorax gotildi 

 and P. Jiypoleuais. I have watched Cormorants at sea and in 

 our bays and estuaries apparently following up shoals of fish fry, 

 but never was I able to discern them devouring the fry, which, 

 owing to the insufficiency of their size, are not satisfying enough 

 to them. I have often observed them capturing the voracious 

 predatory fishes which were following up the shoals of fish fry 

 and destroying thousands upon thousands of immature fish. So, 

 after all, we find that in this instance the Cormorants were again 

 allowing more fish to remain alive than the fishes preying upon 

 the shoal of fish fry would have done had these cannibals not been 

 destroyed by the Cormorants. It is therefore safe to assume 

 that the ratio of the fish in the shoal that would have been 

 destroyed, but which had been given their lives by the action of 

 Cormorants in killing their enemies, would be in the proportion 

 of several thousands to one. Then, again, Cormorants destroy 

 large quantities of eels in our estuaries and streams, especially 

 when there is an eel fare or migration of eels from the sea to the 

 rivers, and it is universally conceded that eels are very 

 destructive to fish ova. Here, again, we have another instance 

 of the benefit the sea Cormorants are to us. They attack the 

 enemies of our fresh-water fishes' ova at the threshold of the 

 onslaught on their habitats. Cormorants prefer non-spinous 

 fish for food, such as eels, on account of their freedom 



