Birds. 9675 



on the water, from a boat, if there is much wave : all the divers swim 

 very low in the water, and from a boat little else but the head and 

 neck can be seen. An ineffectual shot is fired, the bird dives, and the 

 rowers stretch to their oars: the bird soon re-appears — again a shot — 

 again a miss; the bird dives once more. This time he emerges close 

 to a low island rock and mounts upon a crag: the rowers redouble 

 their efforts ; independently of the promised reward if we succeed, the 

 men are getting really excited. We are still more than a hundred 

 yards from the rock : loading this time with loose shot instead of 

 cartridge, and kneeling in the bows with gun in readiness, the distance 

 is rapidly decreased, and the bird appears disposed to wait. We are 

 now about fifty yards from the rock : the bird stretches his long neck, 

 flaps one wing, and takes a header to regain the sea, but a snap-shot 

 takes him between rock and water, and he turns over on his back like 

 a log. The men set up a cheer, and he is triumphantly hauled into 

 the boat. Can there be anything more enjoyable than wild-fowl 

 shooting ? Give me a day in the marsh or along the coast, in pre- 

 ference to a week in your pheasant-preserves. The bracing air, real 

 hard work, and, above all, the variety in the bag, place it, in my mind, 

 above every other kind of shooting. 



Shag. — After the herring gulls the commonest sea-birds which we 

 observed were the shags, or green cormorants : the fishermen call 

 them " black shags," and so common are they along that coast that, 

 on throwing a stone down from the top of a cliff, we frequently saw 

 twenty or thirty of them fly out to sea : it was impossible to shoot 

 them on these occasions, and as I was very anxious to get an adult 

 bird with a crest, we were obliged to have recourse to a boat. The 

 younger birds sometimes remained on a ledge until we were near 

 enougli to pick them off with a cartridge ; but so wary were the old 

 ones that they very seldom came within shot. Out of seven which I 

 bagged five were immature birds, but as it was not easy to decide be- 

 fore firing whether a bird at a distance was old or young, we generally 

 fired on the chance of its proving the former. The young birds, which 

 we did not want, the fishermen were very glad to have, to cut up for 

 bait for their lobster-pots, so that we did not consider them uselessly 

 slaughtered. The time of laying with this bird appears to be very un- 

 certain : we saw young birds that could fly, others that could not, 

 eggs and empty nests on the same day ! I copy the following lines 

 verbatim from my note-book : — "May 28th. At Bat's Head. Found 

 five shags' nests; on the highest the old bird was sitting so close we 

 could not see the eggs; on the next there was a solitary young bird; 



