176 THE BIRDS OF DETOX. 



Shag. Plicdacrocorax graculus (Linn.). 



[Green Cormorant; Crested Cormorant; Shoalster (X.Z).).] 



Resident on the coasts, and breeds. 



The Shag or Crested Cormorant is a common bird on the Devonshire 

 coasts, and is, we believe, more numerous than the Cormorant in some 

 parts. It does not visit the inhind streams like that bird, aUhough it 

 will ascend tidal rivers as far as the tide runs, being often seen as high 

 lip as Barnstaple, which is some six miles above the mouth of Viie Taw. 

 It nests on the cliffs of the north and south-west coasts. The adult bird in 

 its dark green plumage in the earlj- spring, and with its conspicuous 

 crest, is very handsome, although, to our eye, there is something 

 " uncanny " in the appearance both of the Shag and the Cormorant, as 

 Milton doubtless thought when he selected the Cormorant as the bird 

 whose form he represents the great Enemy of mankind as assuming. The 

 Shag is an extremely wary bird, and does not often become the spoil of 

 the gunner, and its compact feathers are almost like a coat of mail. An 

 Instow boatman, who in by-gone years was our companion when wa 

 went after Duck, had many marvellous tales to tell of this invulnerable 

 bird. One day he got near one as it was sitting asleep a,nd drying its 

 feathers in the sun, after the manner of Shags, on a sandbank. He shot 

 it, picked it uji, and tossed it into his boat, and a short time afterwards 

 landed to crawl over the mud with his long duck-gun after a flock of 

 "Wigeon. When he was some distance away he turned round and looked 

 towards his boat, and there, he declared, was his supposed dead Shag 

 seated on the gunwale, shaking the shot out of its feathers, so that he 

 could hear them rattling on Ihe water, and the next thing he saw was 

 the Shag flying cheerfully away ! We have seen great numbers of Shags 

 on Torbay in October : one of the rockj- islands a little distance from the 

 shore is a great roosting-place ; this a friend of ours once rowed out to 

 in the dark, and, firing at random towards the rock, slaughtered a great 

 many of the bii ds. 



On the south coast the Sliag is not so numerous as the Cormorant to the enst of 

 Torbay ; but to the west it is even more abundant, and appears to have increased in 

 numbers near Plymouth, where it was extraordinarily numerous in January 1873 

 (J. G., Zool. LSTl', p. 21)8.5; 1873, p. 33U7 ; 1879, p.' 205). It is not seen' in the 

 harbours near that place before the beginninp; of the usual November gales (.1. G-., Zool. 

 1874, p. 4254). Shags breed in large numbers about the Bolt Head and Hope early 

 in May, and Mr. E. A. S. Elliot found many sitting on their nests, and their mates 

 around them, on the rocks between the Bolt Head and Bolt Tail in May 1889, but 

 they had then lost their crests. The males are considerably heavier than the females 

 (R. P. N. and E. A. S. E., MS. Notes). Shags are sometimes nmnerous after gales at 

 Teignraouth (H. S., Zool. p. 6794), and are occasionally driven inland by stormy 

 \Feather. They rarely ascend tlie estuai-y of the Exe, but we saw one in January 

 1871 which liad been killed near Woodbury. One was killed on the Kingsbridge 

 estuary in full breeding-plumage in February 1875 (J. G., Zool. 1875, p. 4450). 

 Many breed on the north coast and on Luudy Island. 



