8 9 



ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 

 AND REFLECTIONS IN SHETLAND.* 



EDMUND SELOUS 



October 13TH, 1911. — An episode just witnessed by me 

 may give a hint as to the real meaning of the cormoroid (sic) 

 habit of holding the wings ' out to dry.' A fine black Shag 

 came forward in a manner denoting some special intention 

 towards another, whose much browner hue and lightness on 

 the breast — giving it the appearance of a small Common 

 Cormorant — denoted it a young one. No sooner did the 

 latter perceive the action of its parent than it bustled eagerly 

 towards it, with open bill and extended wings, which it both 

 shook and hela out exactly as this is done by the mature bird 

 throughout its life. For the hanging out of the wings is 

 generally preceded by this shaking, which may often, before 

 the final attitude is assumed, become a violent flapping. So, 

 indeed, it did in the case of this young bird, after the parent 

 had fed it and gone, and then it stood for some time, with 

 wings extended, just after the fashion of its elders. It was 

 impossible not to recognise in all these actions, the counterpart 

 in its various stages, of the habit in question. It is now 

 nearly the middle of October, and, as we see, some of the 

 young are still being fed. One can understand that if the 

 young Shag or Cormorant were fed to a somewhat late period, 

 the actions connected with so important a matter being also 

 continued, these might, by habit, be permanently retained, 

 and pass into the after-life of the bird. When the parent 

 opened her mouth to feed this young Shag (which she, this 

 time fronted), the latter thrust its whole head and bill into 

 it, up to the throat. Subsequently, either this one or another 

 young bird, so teased its dam fcr food, that she flew into the 

 sea, and it then pursued her there, causing her to dive. 



To-day I, for the first time, saw something like real hosti- 

 lities between two Shags. One flew over the water at another, 

 who received it with severe peckings. The aggressor dived, 

 but not as it appeared to me, to avoid these, but in order to 

 attack its foe under the water, and the latter then aived also 

 so as to avoid the attack. Shags often show some illwill 

 towards new arrivals on the rock, receiving them with pecks 

 (though generally these appear slight), and causing them to 

 change their places of alighting. 



The entrances of the ' hellirs ' or caverns where the rock- 

 doves breed here, are sometimes but little above the margin 

 of the sea, and it is then a pretty sight to see the birds sink 



* Continued from The Naturalist for 1916, p. 388. 

 1917 Mar. 1. 



