244 PELECANIDiE. 



islets called ReannieSj off Cork harbour, on the 27th of April, 

 1848, saw eggs, two to four in number, in about twenty nests of 

 the cormorant, and several other nests were only completed. The 

 pilfering of the eggs, during the absence of the owners, by a pair 

 of ravens that had a nest in the same range of cliff's, will be found 

 noticed in Vol. I, p. 306. All the cormorants here were in full 

 nuptial plumage, displaying the white thigh-mark, light colour 

 about the head, &c. This species nidifies in various small com- 

 munities on the shelves of the rocky coast between the B-eannies 

 and the Sovereign Islands. 



At the marine rocks of the adjoining county of Waterford, at 

 Ardmore and other places, cormorants build ;^ and with reference 

 most probably to the coast of Wexford, Mr. J. Poole has com- 

 municated the following note : — "May 15th; the cormorant has 

 eggs, some nearly fresh, some, and much the larger portion, nearly 

 hatched, and irom a few nests the young are excluded. Some 

 young bu'ds are nearly grown. The nests are placed in the hol- 

 lows and crevices of a solitary rock (a few yards from the main 

 land), about seventy or eighty feet high, and are composed of sea- 

 weed, ferns, grass, and feathers ; eggs three to five. The young 

 birds exhibit very curious gestures when disturbed or expecting 

 the old ones with food, opening their bills, and causing their 

 cheek-pouches to quiver or undulate with a very rapid motion," 

 At the island of Lambay, off the Dublin coast, cormorants an- 

 nually nidify. t Marine rocks only have liitherto been mentioned 

 as breeding-haunts. Upon an island in a fresh-water lake at 

 Castlemartyr, county of Cork, the seat of the Earl of Shannon, 

 the gamekeeper reckoned more than eighty nests of the cormo- 

 rant on Scotch fir-trees not less than sixty feet in height, about 

 the year ISSS.J 



The spread wings of this bird, after the plumage has become 

 saturated by long diving, have often been commented on by authors 



* ]Mr. R. BaU. t Mr. R. J. IVIontgomeiy. 



X Proceedings of Zoological Society of Loudon, 1847, p. 97. 



