28 NOTES ON THE 
the guns, when the taxidermists get them for mounting in such 
numbers as to become a burden, while ordinarily they are a 
hard bird to obtain, for they are exceedingly shy and vigilant. 
Except when the water is frozen firmly, there is no time in the 
year when they may not be seen in almost every general sec- 
tion where the conditions are favorable to their habits of feed- 
ing, but their nests are more restricted, and not infrequently 
are associated with the Blue Herons in their long occupied 
rookeries. 'Thousands of people visiting Upper Lake Minne- 
tonka during a period of full 30 years have seen them thus 
associated on ‘‘Crane Island,” and the surprise of everybody 
has been that both the Cormorants and Herons did not abandon 
the breeding place long years ago. Their reluctance to aban- 
don it, however, has been aS great as was that of the Sioux, 
with the advantage over the aborigines that there were no 
treaties in the way of their continued possession. The State 
authorities have discovered the same fact and have tardily 
recognized the obligation to protect them from weapons of 
civilized warfare. Local observers in nearly all parts of the 
State report them from ‘‘occasional” to ‘‘innumerable,” accor- 
ing to how near their breeding places the observations have 
been made, especially after they have commenced preparations 
for incubation. 
The preparations for incubation are made about the 10th of 
May in large communities, on islands in the lakes and ponds, 
and almost impenetrable marshes, where are some large, 
branching trees in which they mostly build their coarse but 
substantial nests. These are usually bulky from having been 
added to a little from year to year, and consist of land and wa- 
ter weeds, portions of vines and some sticks, without much 
mechanism in their arrangements, being piled together around a 
deep depression, in which they lay three pale greenish or blu- 
ish eggs, over the surface of which is spread a smear of cal- 
careous material making them somewhat rough to the touch. 
It is not an uncommon sight to see one or more of their nests 
on the same tree on which are a number of the herons’ nests, 
with whom they have no neighbor jars apparently. Being 
principally fish eaters they spend most of the time in the water 
where their movements in pursuit of their prey are simply 
marvelous in velocity. With their totipalmated feet folded 
flatly into mere blades while carried forward and when struck 
out backwards opening to their utmost, and the half-spread 
wings beating with inconceivable rapidity, they seem to fly 
