CORMORANT. 
PIIALACnOCORAX CARBO. 
From Caithness to Cornwall Cormorants may be met with at one season or another, their haunts being 
either in the cliffs and rugged rocks overhanging the sea, or about the mudflats surrounding the estuaries 
of the low-lying portions of our shores. These birds also make their way inland, frequenting rivers and 
occasionally resorting to the broads and meres, evincing a partiality for those waters well stocked with fish. I 
often watched a bird or two perched on the posts marking the course of the river across Breydon mudflats 
near Yarmouth, and others were noticed on the beacons that guide the steamboats on Loch Ness. An old ferry- 
man living at Dochfour, near the east end of the loch, who often rowed my boat while fishing, was loud in 
abuse of these birds, which he termed Crans, declaring that they consumed immense quantities of trout ; and 
doubtless the opinion he had formed concerning their destructive habits was correct. At the time of my 
last visit to the Fern Islands, in 1867, there were about one hundred pairs breeding on a low rocky island, 
the hi<irhest nest being onlv about twenty feet above high-water mark, and the whole easily accessible. I 
learned from Darling, the egg-collector, that these birds usually change their nesting-quarters every season. 
The eggs of this species are sold at the neighbouring villages or to chance purchasers at four a penny *. 
On the Yorkshire coast, a few miles north of Whitby, I noticed a considerable number, in the summer of 
1862, breeding high up in the face of the cliffs, the ledges on which the nests were placed being perfectly 
free from intrusion unless ropes were brought into use. The numbers of Cormorants visible on the 
rocks along the wild and dangerous Cornish coast are sure to attract attention ; in the vicinity of all 
the bays and coves they appeared especially abundant, fishing continually and flying up, to rest or dress 
and dry their plumage, to the face of the cliffs or the detached rocks that offered security from the 
breaking surf. As I believe the young have not been figured by any author, a description of the soft 
parts of an immature bird shot near Lamorna Cove on November 5, 1880, in its first autumn plumage, 
may not be out of place : — Iris dirty green, circle round a dusky yellow ; upper mandible a dull dark 
broAvn, lower a pale yellow tinged with green ; gape yellow. Legs outside dark, almost black, inner 
side pale yellow ; webs and toes dusky, joints of toes darker ; nails black. 
The season at which the male Cormorant attains the milk-white neck is doubtless early in the 
spring, and the bright feathers are in all probability speedily shed. During all my travels in the north, 
I have seen but few birds displaying this very conspicuous colouring. On the 14th of April, 1869, I 
noticed a Cormorant with a perfectly white neck resting on the sand-banks to the east of the channel 
that forms the outlet from the muddy harbour known as the Little Ferry, near Golspie. Though there 
was little hope of securing this handsome specimen, I determined to make the attempt. A heavy sea 
was rolling in the channel, with a strong wind blowing from the south-east, as we swept out from between 
the banks, and so much water broke on board that it was necessary to run aground to save sinking the 
• Full particulars conceruiug the egg-business at the Fern Islands are given under the heading of the Arctic Tern. 
