( 458 ) ^ j. 



THE COMMON CORMORANT. 



Phalacrocorax Carbo, Dumont. 



PLATE CCLXVI. Male, Female, and Young. 



Look at the birds before you, and mark the aiFectionate glance of the 

 mother, as she stands beside her beloved younglings ! I wish you could 

 have witnessed the actions of such groups as I did while in Labrador. 

 Methinks I still see the high rolling billows of the St Lawrence breaking 

 in foaming masses against the huge cliffs, on the shelves of which the 

 Cormorant places its nest. I lie flat on the edge of the precipice some 

 hundred feet above the turbulent waters, and now crawling along with all 

 care, I find myself only a few yards above the spot on which the parent 

 bird and her young are fondling each other, quite unconscious of my 

 being near. How delighted I am to witness their affectionate gratula- 

 tions, hear their lisping notes, mark the tremulous motions of their ex- 

 panded throats, and the curious vacillations of their heads and necks ! 

 The kind mother gently caresses each alternately with her bill ; the little 

 ones draw nearer to her, and, as if anxious to evince their gratitude, rub 

 their heads against hers. How pleasing all this is to me ! But at this 

 moment the mother accidentally looks upward, her keen eye has met mine, 

 she utters a croak, spreads her sable wings, and in terror launches into 

 the air, leaving her brood at my mercy. Far and near, above and be~ 

 neath me, the anxious parent passes and repasses ; her flight is now un- 

 natural, and she seems crippled, for she would fain perform those actions 

 in the air, which other birds perform on the ground or on the water, in such 

 distressing moments of anxiety for the fate of their beloved young. Her 

 many neighbours, all as suspicious as herself, well understand the mean- 

 ino" of her mode of flight, and one after another take to wing, so that the 

 air is in a manner blackened with them. Some fly far over the waters, 

 others glide along the face of the bold rock, but none that have observed 

 me realight, and how many of those there are I am pretty certain, as the 

 greater number follow in the track of the one most concerned. Mean- 

 while the little ones, in their great alarm, have crawled into a recess, and 

 there they are huddled together. I have witnessed their pleasures and 



