242 PELECANID.E. 



still higher cliffs. The most favourable opportunity I have had of 

 observing it is alluded to in a general description of the birds of 

 Horn Head, under Puffin (p. 225). The gamekeeper there stated 

 that he had seen salmon of from two to five pounds weight in 

 their nests; but this must be over-estimated. They are con- 

 sidered so destructive to this valuable fish, that a reward of four- 

 pence is paid to him for the head of every cormorant of this 

 species he can procure. In a note to the Shag in M'Skimmin^s 

 ' Carrickfergus/ it is added : — " Eewards were formerly paid at 

 assize for destroying these birds ; in the records- of the county 

 Antriflft, in 1729, mention is made of a person called Jemfrey, in 

 Island Magee, who had kiUed ninety-six cormorants in one sea- 

 son." We cannot tell from this whether rewards were offered for 

 only one, or for both species. 



Lieut. Eeynolds informed us, in 1834, that the cormorant 

 which is "all black" breeds on the Bills Eock, off Achil. 



At Arranmore, off Galway Bay, Mr. Ball and I, on the 8th 

 of July, 1834, saw a colony of cormorants at their breeding-sta- 

 tions ; — a tabular mass of limestone high above the sea, and from 

 the summit of which a lofty range of precipice arose. The follow- 

 ing day we saw twenty-two of them swimming together in a close 

 flock, between the two smaller islands. Not one of the birds 

 perched on the rock — (and they were admirably seen through a 

 telescope) — exhibited the least white on the head or thigh, nor any 

 crest ; nor did those already noticed as seen about the same time 

 in the vicinity of the fresh- water lakes. Further, with respect to 

 plumage; one, which flew within twenty yards of me, at Port 

 Lough, was wholly black, as were two which passed near to me 

 at Horn Head ; and not one, out of the many birds in their nest- 

 ing-place there, exliibited the least white, or peculiar plumage of 

 the ' crested corvorant ' of Bewick, considered by authors as their- 

 breeding attire. It would thus seem that these birds throw off 

 that plumage earlier here, or breed at a later period than they do 

 in other localities, and at the same time make known the sin- 

 gular fact, that the cormorant does not, like most other birds, 

 retain its full dress during the breeding season. I have not seen 



