THE COMMON OR GREAT CORMORANT. 217 



sooner or later, according to the presence of the fish. On the 

 latter day a flock of above a hundred cormorants was observed to 

 to bear down upon the estuary from the direction of Strangford 

 Lough, and were, at first sight, owing to the great number, mis- 

 taken for wild geese : they soon broke up into divisions, of which 

 that already noticed was one, and betook themselves to different 

 parts of the bay. So early as the 3rd of August, 1850, 1 observed 

 a flock of seventeen fly over the point of the Kinnegar, and near to 

 the town ; but within an hour they returned again. On looking 

 to the food in two birds killed here, I found in one the remains 

 of fish and a perfect specimen of the crustacean Panclalus annuU- 

 cornis (slirimp-like in size) ; the other contained an eel about 

 fifteen inches in length, and, with the usual perversity of the 

 species, having its head turned towards the throat of the bird. 

 The weight of one of these cormorants, a male, was 7 lbs. 6 oz. 

 (avoirdupois) . 



An accurate observer, who, from living on the shore of Belfast 

 Bay, and shooting a great deal, had ample opportunities of study- 

 ing the habits of the cormorant, states, in opposition to writers 

 generally on the subject, that he has never seen it throw a fish, 

 awkwardly caught for being swallowed, into the air, or clear of the 

 bill, that it might be seized in a favourable position for that pur- 

 pose, but, to use his own words, " the fish is instead shifted in 

 the bird's biU and different snatches are made at it until it comes 

 right, just in the manner that a dog acts under such circum- 

 stances." Nor has he ever seen it fly to the land with any 

 object J nor swim with its head under water when looking out for 

 food ; — " it affords the fowler no such chance of a shot.'' He 

 considers it to keep quite under water when fishing, and to dive 

 in search of prey, before unseen. His reason for this opinion, is, 

 that the bird comes up frequently without prey, wliich he believes 

 is always brought to the surface to be eaten, from the circumstance 

 that very small fish are sometimes in its bill when the bird re-ap- 

 pears after diving. Large fish he has often seen it shake, as a dog 

 does a rat, to render them manageable ; he has observed it to eat 

 more small flounders {Platessa jlesus) than any other fish (owing 



