RAVEN 107 
all on rocks, and almost all on the coast, whose higher cliffs 
are thus tenanted at short intervals. In one or two cases 
there may be some doubt as to whether the sites are annual 
or alternative, and in precipices, which are yearly made use 
of, the exact site is sometimes shifted, so that two or three 
of the huge bulky structures may be seen together. The 
situation varies a good deal, sometimes on the top cliff 
above a grassy brow, sloping to a strand, sometimes at 
differing elevations on the face of a precipice directly 
over the shore or high-water mark, but seldom actually 
over-hanging water, and always more or less protected by 
sheltering prominences ; in fact, the site is often of a cavern- 
ous nature. It was exceptionally so in the case of a nest 
used a few years ago on the west coast, and still existing. 
This was on a shelf fairly inside the mouth of a sea cave; 
a seemingly more suitable position for a Shag’s nest, and 
affording nothing of the wide outlook which the species 
usually desires. Mr. Graves notes another site in a fissure 
where the bird was scarcely visible from outside. When 
the southern ‘ Marine Drive’ was engineered along the face 
of the cliff of Wallberry, it passed underneath a Raven’s 
nest, which might long have been seen but a few feet above 
the roadway. 
A nest seen on 9th May 1893 was built about twenty 
feet above a little shingled beach, and the cliff rose again 
about seventy feet above it. It lay on the back of a shelf 
of some size, above which hung another which sheltered it. 
From a point to one side it could very well be seen, and at 
that time it contained one or two large, almost fledged 
young ; higher up was an old nest. The parent birds were 
both very excited, and one of them kept plucking out dry 
grass from the neighbourhood of the nest and showering it 
about her, conduct which I have seen repeated on another 
occasion, and which has also been frequently observed by 
