THE COMMON CORMORANT. 413 



notes, mark the tremulous motions of their expanded throats, and the curious 

 vacillations of their heads and necks! The kind mother gently caresses each 

 alternately with her bill; the little ones draw nearer to her, and, as if 

 anxious to evince their gratitude, rub their heads against hers. How 

 pleasing all this is to me! But at this moment the mother accidentally 

 looks upward, her keen eye has met mine, she utters a croak, spreads her 

 sable wings, and in terror launches into the air, leaving her brood at my 

 mercy. Far and near, above and beneath me, the anxious parent passes and 

 repasses; her flight is now unnatural, and she seems crippled, for she would 

 fain perform those actions in the air, which other birds perform on the 

 ground or on the water, in such distressing moments of anxiety for the fate 

 of their beloved young. Her many neighbours, all as suspicious as herself, 

 well understand the meaning of her mode of flight, and one after another 

 take to wing, so that the air is in a manner blackened with them. Some fly 

 far over the waters, others glide along the face of the bold rock, but none 

 that have observed me realight, and how many of those there are I am pretty 

 certain, as the greater number follow in the track of the one most concerned. 

 Meanwhile the little ones, in their great alarm, have crawled into a recess, 

 and there they are huddled together. I have witnessed their pleasures and 

 their terrors, and now, crawling backwards, I leave them to resume their 

 ordinary state of peaceful security. 



It was on the 3d of July, 1833, about three in the morning, that I had the 

 pleasure of witnessing the scene described above. I was aware before that a 

 colony of Cormorants had nestled on the ledges of the great rocky wall that 

 separated our harbour of Whapatiguan from the waters of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence. A strong gale had ruffled the sea, and the waves dashed with 

 extreme violence against the rocks, to which circumstance, I believe, was 

 owing my having remained awhile unseen and unheard so near the birds, 

 which were not more than four or five yards below me. The mother fondled 

 and nursed her young with all possible tenderness, disgorged some food into 

 the mouth of each, and coaxed them with her bill and wings. The little 

 ones seemed very happy, billed with their mother, and caressed her about 

 the breast. When the parent bird flew off on observing me, the young 

 seemed quite frightened, squatted at once on their broad nest, and then 

 crawled with the aid of their bills until they reached a recess, where they 

 remained concealed. 



On another occasion, my young friends Lincoln and Cooledge, along 

 with my son, went to the same rocks, for the purpose of bringing me a nest 

 and some of the young Cormorants. They reported that, in one instance, 

 they surprised the parent birds close beneath them, apparently asleep, resting 

 on their rumps in an upright position, with the head thrust under the wing, 



