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Bird - Lore 



So seldom are the birds disturbed that here they show far less fear of 

 man than they usually manifest when found feeding about the harbors, or 

 in the shallow salt water sounds. In an open canoe we approached within 

 sixty feet of some of the mother birds brooding their eggs, and photographed 

 them as they sat on their nests, with their long necks stretched and their 

 sharply hooked beaks pointing inquiringly in our direction. Many, however, 

 left the trees when our boat arrived within a hundred yards of their breed- 

 ing territory. They fly heavily, and in many instances strike the water 



VOUNC CORMORANTS 



within one hundred yards of their perch, but ricochetting quickly they are 

 soon strong upon the wing, and, like departing bombshells, their black figures 

 rush hurtling across the lake. In striking the water, it is only the posterior 

 portion of the body which splashes, and this doubtless gives variety to the 

 belief, entertained by my guide, that the ''nigger goose" can not fly "until 

 it wets its tail." The old birds, frightened away by our approach, soon 

 returned in a body, but after flying about in circles for a short time settled 

 out on the lake several hundred yards distant. 



Anxious to secure photographs of the nests and young, I climbed into 

 one of the trees containing a number of nests, and was interested to find 

 not only eggs but young in various stages of development. The parents 

 evidently furnish their offspring with an abundance of food ; for many of the 

 nests, and in places the limbs, also, were strewn with fragments of eels and 



