The Brandt Cormorant 



says: 1 "The Cormorants were now gathering grass for their nests, from 

 an island almost within a stone's throw of the mainland. They appeared 

 as a rule from the south, alighted at the edge of the island, a cliff some 

 thirty feet in height, waddled awkwardly to the undipped grass, pulled 

 a bill-full, waddled back to the cliff border, threw themselves into the 

 air on outstretched wings, and flying toward the north, returned to their 

 nesting rock, which was immediately back of the one on which they were 

 haying. Throughout the day feathered mowers were rarely absent from 

 the field, sometimes as many as nine birds being present. The denuded 

 area from which the grass had been removed was as bare and as sharply 

 defined from that portion of the crop which the Cormorants had not yet 

 gathered as though it had been mowed and raked by a human harvester." 

 The eggs, normally four in number, are of a delicate "blue" — the 

 color of skim milk, Finley says. This effect is secured by a thin white 



■Camps and Cruises of an Ornithologist, by Frank M. Chapman; New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1908, p. 272. 



Taken near Santa Barbara 



THE LEGACY OF GUN-FIRE 



ALL WINGED CREATURES FLEE AT THE APPROACH OF CIVILIZED (!) MAN 



Photo by the Author 



I95 2 



