MISCELLANEA 249 



series of violent twists and dropping vertically the while, 

 until, reaching a convenient elevation they recover themselves 

 with marvellous skill and glide gently to the spot chosen for 

 alighting. 



The birds frequent the same resorts time after time, and I 

 know a burn by the sea where, in autumn, one might reckon 

 with certainty on finding them waiting for a falling tide. 

 Here I have on occasions disturbed as many as nine Herons 

 within a radius of a quarter of a mile. 



As soon as the tide is low enough to give foothold on the 

 outlying reefs the Herons come down to the sea, not in 

 groups, but singly, each bird taking up a position well 

 removed from that of its neighbour. They are silent as a 

 - rule, but occasionally utter a peculiar honking croak. This 

 cry I have heard only when a number of birds are about, and 

 usually when one is on the point of rising or alighting. 



As they are among the first birds to arrive on the un- 

 covered rocks, so they are about the last to leave when the 

 tide returns. Long after the gulls and small wading birds 

 have left, the Herons are there, and if the sea is calm you 

 see them standing on the submerged rocks, motionless, like 

 so many sentinels, silhouetted against the waters of the in- 

 coming tide. — y. y. Hill. 



Cormorants in Tynemouth Haven. — A pair of Cormorants 

 have this year (1912) taken up their winter quarters in Tyne- 

 mouth Haven. They frequent the north shore in the vicinity 

 of the Black Middens, and are particularly fond of perching 

 upon the "Skeleton Beacon" near the outer margin of the 

 rocks about a mile up river. Here one or both of the birds 

 may be seen regularly, often in characteristic pose with raised 

 bill and outspread wings. I saw them first in mid-November 

 when a storm was raging, and on that occasion their position 

 seemed well chosen, being somewhat sheltered behind the 

 Battery Point from the north and north-east winds. 



I am told that for the past three years two of these birds, 



