460 COMMON CORMORANT. 



ter, in which condition we saw them previous to the arrival of the birds 

 that season. The nests varied in breadth according to the space on which 

 they were placed ; where there was ample room, they measured at the 

 base from thirty to thirty-six inches in diameter ; others were scarcely 

 large enough to hold the young, which nevertheless seemed as contented 

 as their neighbours. On some shelves, eight or ten yards in extent, the 

 nests were crowded together ; but more visually they were placed apart 

 on every secure place without any order ; none, however, were below a 

 certain height on the rocks, nor were there any on the summit. The nests 

 being covered with tilth, were offensive to the eye, and stiU more so to the 

 nose. The eggs, three or four in number, more frequently the former, 

 average two inche? and five-eighths in length, by one inch and three quar- 

 ters in breadth, the shell of a uniform pale bluish-green colour, mostly 

 coated over with calcareous matter. 



The young are at first of a dark purplish livid colour, and have a 

 very uncouth appearance, their legs and feet seeming enormous. In less 

 than a fortnight they become covered on all the upper parts with brown- 

 ish-black down, but the abdomen remains bare much longer than the 

 rest. They increase rapidly in size, and are fledged in six or seven 

 weeks. Some that were weighed when about a month old, averaged three 

 pounds, and others almost able to fly six pounds, the young of this spe- 

 cies, as of most water birds, being much heavier than the parent at 

 the time of leaving the nest. We procured several of different sizes, 

 which we kept on the deck. Whenever a person approached them, 

 they raised their heads, stretched their necks, and opened their bills, 

 so as to expand the skin of the throat, which they made to vibrate, 

 while they uttered a sort of hissing mutter of a very strange character, 

 but resembling that of the young of the Brown Pelican. They crawled 

 sluggishly about, aiding themselves in their progress with their bills, and 

 at all times looked extremely clumsy. They took food very readily, ate 

 a prodigious quantity, certainly more than their own weight each day, 

 and appeared always ready to receive more. When thrown overboard, 

 they swam off under water, like the old birds, with considerable speed, 

 moving their unfledged wings all the while. Some would not rise for 

 twenty or thirty yards, but few went farther under water than that dis- 

 tance, and they were soon fatigued. On one occasion, some half-grown 

 young birds threw themselves from their nest, or were pushed off by their 

 parents Avhile in the agonies of death, they having been shot at. As they 



