COKMORANT. 
punt and losing our gear. The hird took little notice of our mishap, and might easily have been 
secured had the wind and weather only been favourable. On the Tain sands, on the opposite side of the 
Dornoch Pirth, I also noticed one in the same state of plumage, hut failed to ol)tain a shot, owing to 
the state of the tide. At none of the breeding-stations visited in May and June was I able to detect a 
single bird exhibiting the white feathers on the neck to any extent, and in all probability this conspicuous 
colouring is discarded before the nesting-time. Repeated observations also led me to believe that it is only 
the oldest birds that assume this state of plumage. The most perfectly marked white-necked specimen that 
has come under my notice was in the Inn at Garve, on the road between Dingwall and Gairloch, and I 
learned that the bird had been shot on the freshwater loch near at hand. 
Though it has been asserted that the flesh of Cormorants is useless as an article of food, these 
birds, while in the immature state, are by no means unpalatable when served up by those well used to 
their work. One spring, while stopping at Canty Bay, I happened to enter the kitchen of the inn 
when Adams the landlord, who also rented the Bass, was at dinner, and at his request I sat down 
and was helped to (what ho was pleased to term) a plate of hare-soup. It was undeniable that the 
soup was excellent, but it is doubtful if it would have been approved of had I been aware of the fact 
that it was made from certain portions of two Cormorants and a Shag shot near the Bass a few days 
previously. I remarked, while living at Xorth Berwick and Canty Bay, that though using the Bass as a 
roosting-station in great numbers during autumn, winter, and early spring, no Cormorants ever bred 
upon the rock. Some of the old fishermen, who had looked after the birds for over fifty years, also 
informed me that, to the best of their knowledge, not a nest had ever been built by this species on 
the Bass. 
Cormorants are well known to select singular situations on which to alight; a bird has now and 
then been seen on the spire of the highest church at A^armouth, and also more than once on a brewery- 
chimney in another part of the town. On the 16th of September, 1868, I watched an immature bird, 
after several failures, obtain a footing on the tail of the gilt cock on the summit of the town-hall at 
Tain, in Iloss-shire ; hero it remained, balancing itself in an uneasy manner with no little dilllculty, till 
fired at from the Iligh Street, when it at once made a straight course for the Pirth. While gunning 
on the north-east coast of Scotland in March 1869, a Cormorant made an attempt to settle on oui 
punt as we dropped quietly with the ebb-tide down a channel in a muddy harbour, just as daylight was 
closing in. 
The nests of Cormorants are placed, as previously stated, on ledges in the face of lofty cliffs and 
also on low rocky islets at but a slight elevation above high-water mark; in two or three localities 
these birds also resort to the islands on inland lochs, constructing their nests on the open ground. 
Some twenty years ago they often built in trees on both the north and south shores of the Dornoch lirtli 
(Scotch firs, I believe, in every instance) ; but on making inquiries a few months back as to the numbers that 
now frequented the spot, I learned that no birds had been seen in the district for some time. I he nests I 
closely examined at the Pern Islands were large and roughly constructed, composed for the most part of 
weather-beaten branches of trees and dead sticks, the greater portion of the materials having evidently been 
picked up at sea, the bark being worn off from long immersion in the waves or washing along the shore. 
The stalks of the largest tangle were also intertwined, apparently with the view of holding the structure 
together, the lining being invariably composed of various kiirds of the smaller seaweeds, Avith rrow and then 
a few tufts of rough grass. 
