164 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



upwards, the long beak spearing the air. The sudden revealmeut 

 of his lithe wet outline seems to diminish his size, and he 

 becomes in a much greater degree long, lank, and snaky, like a 

 Shag. For a moment — as he alights — he stands almost as up- 

 right as a Penguin ; then, bending snakily forward, with legs 

 straddled wide apart, he waddles a step or two along the raft, 

 seeming to feel for the eggs with the feathers between his legs ; 

 then sinks forward on his breast, and sits at ease with his head 

 drawn down upon his back. The female bird now swims much 

 farther afield — too far for me to make out what she is doing, but 

 probably she is feeding. I have now seen plainly that when 

 preening these birds turn very much on one side, thus showing 

 in a gleam — bright to dazzling — the silver of the breast, or rather 

 ventral surface, almost in its full extent. I leave at seven, there 

 having been no further change on the nest. 



May ith. — At 5 a.m. I find the male bird on the nest. As I 

 approach the tree from which I watch, and whilst still a great 

 way off, he leaves it, but keeps close about, sometimes swimming 

 a few yards away from it, then turning, diving, and emerging 

 again just beside it. Then pressing against it with his breast, 

 he cranes forward his neck, and looks into it, then coasts round 

 it a little, again cranes his neck, and in a moment makes his lithe 

 Cormorant leap, and is on it. The spring is very quick and 

 sudden, yet smooth and without splash, suggesting that the bird 

 has been oiled, or that he passes from oil rather than water. He 

 stands but a moment — ^just one flash of a Cormorant — and then 

 sinks flatly and smoothly down. 



5.50. — The female, who has been before invisible, is now all 

 at once there, and approaches the nest, swimming to it quietly 

 and placidly over the sun-bathed mirror of the lake. It is clearly 

 the female, for the other, the male, is considerably larger, and has 

 a larger crest. Both birds remain quietly by the nest for a 

 minute or so, the male turned sideways in the water so that full 

 three-fourths of his beautiful silver breast is exposed ; and as he 

 preens it, assiduously spearing into the thick fur of feathers 

 with his long finely-pointed bill, one of his finned feet or paddles 

 is often raised above the surface of the water, and beats it idly. 

 The female then takes her place on the nest, but her leap is 

 not so lithe and subtle, so instinct with nervous energy, so 



