232 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



has the tendency of its component parts. I have found in a "Scart's" 

 nest a fresh egg, one nearly hatched, and a couple of young birds. This 

 was at Horn Head. While I watched, now and then a well-trained husband 

 flew up with a fish, which he instantly placed in the beak of his mate, and 

 which as instantly disappeared. They were brown fishes (rock-fish) about 

 five or six inches long. I could discern no difference in the plumage of the 

 male and female Shag. The female sits brooding with head and neck bolt 

 upright, and when not fishing the male generally stands on the edge of the 

 nest by her side — that is, on the assumption that it is the female that 

 hatches. The Great Cormorant did not appear to me to be quite so 

 uxorious, but hatched similarly. The notes of the Cormorants on their 

 nests are curious: there is a deep note, not pitched much lower than that 

 of a Guillemot's call to its young; this is, I think, the Shag's note of alarm. 

 Then there is a wondrous and appalling deeper note which issues from the 

 male Cormorant's throat— a warning of danger, but which always remains 

 unheeded ; it is so deep that it quivers and vibrates through the air like an 

 organ tone, and I do not know any bird that can beat it — though it is not 

 music. Another note which emanates from the Cormorant colony is an 

 exact imitation of a sheep's bleat, except that it is rather too deep ; to the 

 best of my belief this came from the Green Cormorant, for I never heard it 

 when visiting nesting places composed altogether of Great Cormorants, like 

 that at Breaghy Head, near Horn Head. Lastly, the "intolerable stench" 

 often referred to as belonging to these birds' nests was absent here. I have 

 noticed it at Breaghy, where the nests were of seaweed, clumsy things 

 compared with these, which are fairly tidy. The stench may come from 

 the decomposing seaweed, which is not seen here. The Jackdaws may also 

 be helpful in this direction, which is distinctly an improvement. — H. 

 Chichester Hart (Carrablagh, Portsalon, Letterkenny). 



Unusual Abundance of Golden Plover near Bath.— I was agreeably 

 surprised, when on Lansdown this spring, to see large numbers of Golden 

 Plover, Charadrius pluvialis. Every winter small flocks may be seen in 

 the above locality, but I have never before noticed them in such abundance 

 in this neighbourhood. I should think there were over four hundred birds, 

 and seen on the wing, on a sunshiny day, it was a most beautiful sight. — 

 C. B. Horsbrugh (4, Richmond Hill, Bath). 



A Plea for the Jay and Magpie.— In a recent notice in the ' Saturday 

 Review ' of a new ornithological work, the reviewer, after lamenting the 

 decrease in our country of most of the more interesting birds, to make room 

 for a monotonous plethora of game, remarked that the Jay and Magpie 

 were getting very scarce, and he hinted that they were no particular loss, 

 except from the point of view of the picturesque. A few lines further on 

 he regretted the great and increasing abundance of Wood Pigeons. I have 

 not the remotest idea who the writer of the review in question may be ; 





