VOL. VII. ] THE STEGANOPODES. 95 



beginning of May. In the north-west of Ireland the 

 season is but Uttle later, and out of fourteen nests 

 with eggs examined by the waiter on April 24th, in co. 

 Mayo, two were hard-set and had been incubated about 

 a fortnight. On exposed sites they naturally breed 

 rather later, and it is probable that more than one brood 

 is sometimes reared in a season, for Mr. Ussher has met 

 with eggs at various dates up to July 23rd, and has found 

 young birds on the breeding-ledges as late as August. 



On the EngUsh and Welsh coasts the first eggs are 

 generally to be found early in May or during the last 

 week of April, but fresh eggs may be met with through 

 May and June and unfledged young have been seen on 

 the Northumbrian coast as late as July. Mr. A. 0. 

 Walker's observations (quoted by Dr. W. H. Dobie) show 

 that in North Wales two broods are reared in the season 

 on the Little Orme. Professor J. H. Salter saw newly 

 hatched young on the coast of Cardigan Bay on May 13th, 

 so that full clutches must have been laid here by mid- 

 April {Zoologist, 1895, p. 253). 



In Scotland the breeding-season is sHghtly later. Saxby 

 says that in Unst the first eggs are laid towards the middle 

 of May, and Mr. Allan Briggs {Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist., 1893, 

 p. 72) states that on a skerry off North Ronaldshay 

 some fifty nests still contained fresh and hard-set eggs 

 on July 4th. In this colony only four nests contained 

 more than three eggs, but the Rev. J. R. Hale informs 

 me that the average clutch was four, and some nests 

 contained five eggs, in the colon\ on MuU Head, Pomona, 

 on June 3rd. At Vardo, Schrader states that the usual 

 clutch consists of two eggs only, which may be found 

 at the beginning of June. 



In Germany the first eggs may be found from April 10th 

 to 19th, as a rule, but exceptionally eggs have been taken 

 on the Continent as early as the end of March. Seebohm, 

 who visited the lower Danube late in the year, found 

 fresh eggs on June 5th, and inferred that the Cormorants 

 were able to alter the date of breeding according to 



