LETTER XX. 143 



If the young " Scartlings " are hatched, they keep up a perpetual 

 clamour very different from their taciturn parents ; the report of 

 the gun frequently brings one toppling over the edge of its coarse 

 sea-tangle nest — a most ungainly-looking youngster. If we like 

 to wait here till evening, we might get almost any number of 

 birds, as they come flying home at sunset, for the Cormorant 

 keeps early hours and retires to rest with the sun. But we are 

 contented with what we have done and will now stay our hand 

 from slaughter. 



The Cormorant is very tenacious of life. When winged, he 

 seems to recover new life as soon as he strikes the water, and 

 escapes by diving. When wounded, they sometimes disappear in 

 a mysterious manner, though there are plenty of quick eyes in the 

 boat, and all around is as smooth as a polished mirror. Yet the 

 wounded bird is not to be seen, and is believed by the boatmen 

 to have gone to the bottom— to remain there, out of spite. 



Some time ago I heard of a party of fishermen visiting a 

 Scarfs cave by night. A fire being lighted, the poor birds came 

 fluttering down from their roosts, and were killed with sticks. 

 However, in the midst of the confusion — smoke, darkness, flapping 

 wings, and whirring of revolving shillelahs — an unfortunate 

 fellow was mistaken by a comrade for a gigantic Phalocrocorax. 

 The sharp crack of a broken skull was heard, instead of the dull 

 thud of smitten feathers, and the victim was taken home in the 

 bottom of the boat as insensible as the bed of dead Cormorants 

 on which he lay. 



Had the accident terminated fatally the coroner's verdict would 

 have been " Served him right ; '' but the Highlander's cranium 



