CORMORANT AND OTHER DIVERS 29 



heavy meal. The upper illustration on the 

 accompanying plate shows this attitude. 



The lower photograph on the same plate 

 shows a cormorant swimming on the surface. 

 The bird is by no means the entirely blaek object 

 it appears in the distance, for the bronze-brown 

 wing coverts have distinct blackish-green mar- 

 gins. It will be seen in the photograph how 

 these markings fit in with the ripple pattern on 

 the water. 



Cormorants consume a prodigious quantity 

 of fish. I have watched them feeding in the 

 sea off Cornwall, in the Hebrides and on fresh 

 waters, and though a bird only weighs six to 

 eight pounds, it consumes at least fifteen pounds 

 weight of fish a day ; some authorities place the 

 total considerably higher. 



An extraordinarily large amount can also be 

 taken at one time. A Scarborough naturalist 

 gave a bird fifty herrings, all of which were 

 swallowed. On one occasion I gave a small 

 captive cormorant all the fish he wanted, and 

 he took twenty-seven herrings of an average 

 length of seven inches. 



Reliable records are available of specimens 

 which contained respectively a conger 2 ft. 6 in. 



