26 
FOREST AND STREAM 
January, 1919 
AT HOME WITH THE BLUE-EYED SHAGS 
THE CRESTED CORMORANTS ARE THE FISHERFOLK OF THE FAR SOUTH AND EKE 
OUT A PROSPEROUS EXISTENCE AMONG ICE-BOUND. ROCKY. WINDSWEPT SHORES 
A mong the few kinds of birds which 
have adapted themselves to the 
severe conditions of life along Ant- 
arctic ocean fronts is a group of white- 
breasted, blue-backed, crested cormor- 
ants. Long of wind, strong of wing, and 
capable of climbing and walking upright 
along slippery ledges of coastal cliffs, the 
cormorants are at home in three ele- 
ments. They are par excellence the fish- 
erfolk of the Far South, and so well 
fitted have they proved themselves to 
eke out a prosperous existence in the 
lands of gales, ice, and rock-bristling 
shores, that they have spread their range 
clear around the southern end of the 
world, until some representative of the 
group has come to inhabit each one of 
the chain of islands that encircles the 
Antarctic. All of these cormorants are 
characterized by a ring of bright blue, 
naked skin about the eye, whence the 
common name. Blue-eyed Shag. 
At the Bay of Isles, in blustery South 
Georgia, I met the Blue-eyed Shags in 
the southern spring of 1912. The wild 
fjords of this arm of the sea are bounded 
by steep and icy mountains, but the bay 
itself is dotted with low,' fiat-topped 
islets on which an ice-cap never forms, 
and which are kept clear of new snow 
by the denuding violence of the wind. 
On the precipitous faces of these isles 
the shags build their homes. 
A bout the last of December (the 
June of the Antarctic), I made the 
difficult landing on the lee side of 
the smallest islet in the Bay of Isles, 
and scrambled up the face of its rocky 
wall. It consisted of a rugged little pile 
of strata, tipped on edge, channeled by 
many gorges and pools into which the 
waves surged, swashing back and forth 
the long strands of kelp and other sea- 
weeds. On the plateau at the top of the 
cliff the rock proved to be covered with 
thick black soil, and a luxuriant growth 
of tussock grass, which was swarming 
with those minute and lowly-organized 
insects, the “springtails” or Collembola. 
A pair of Antarctic pipits (the southern- 
most of songbirds) inhabited the islet, 
and also a few burrowing whale-birds 
{Prion) ; but the principal residents were 
the shags, whose nests lined the rocky 
and grassy ledges all over the northerly 
or sunny face of the islet’s declivity. 
The courtship of the shags seemed to 
be progressing while the nests were build- 
ing. I saw one pair standing side by 
side on their unfinished home, and curts- 
r HE Natural History Depart- 
ment has been for nearly half 
a century a clearing-house for in- 
formation of interest to all. Our 
readers are invited to send any 
questions that come under the head 
of this department to Robert Cush- 
man Murphy, in care of Forest 
AND Stream. Mr. Murphy, who is 
Curator of the Department of Na- 
tural Science in the Brooklyn 
Museum, will answer through these 
columns . — [ Editors. ] 
Photo by Robert Cushman Murphy 
At top, brooding female, showing 
the tremulations of the throat; 
center, two newly hatched young, 
lying characteristically flat on their 
backs; below, female shag with 
same young birds at the age of 
forty-nine days 
eying. They would put their cheeks close 
together, bow down their heads and necks, 
then, twisting their necks, put the other 
cheeks together in the same way, and 
curtsey again. After this graceful min- 
uet had been continued for several min- 
utes the male would launch off on a 
short, exuberant flight, from which he 
would soon return to resume the love- 
making. 
The nests were steep-sided, truncated 
cones of mud and withered tussock grass, 
with a rather deep depression. Some 
were situated on the tops of dead tus- 
sock hummocks, others on the shelves of 
lichen-covered rock, with long icicles 
overhanging them. Many contained sets 
of two or three greenish eggs, others 
young birds just hatched or a few days 
old, and still another held three full- 
grown fledgings which had lost nearly 
all their down. Both parents seemed to 
be together at all of the nests. I lifted 
off one female, which had been brooding 
with her wings spread, and discovered 
a blind, black, and unclad shaglet, the 
eggshell from which it had just crawled, 
and another egg not yet broken open. It 
was impossible to keep either parent 
away from the nest, although the male 
was less brave than his mate. Both were 
very gentle, not attempting to defend 
themselves ; they merely watched me 
sharply with their close-set, blue-rimmed 
eyes. The only note that they uttered 
was a low croak. They kept their bills 
parted, however, the mandible and throat 
trembling violently, just as w’hen one’s 
teeth chatter. When I tossed them aside 
in order to see the nestling, they would 
fly back immediately, and the female 
would plump right into the nest. The 
ugly baby, the cause of all this solicitude, 
acted as though it were in a violent tem- 
per. Perhaps it was cold. It kicked 
about so that I could scarcely photograph 
it, rolling its belly upward, jerking it- 
self around the nest cavity, squeaking 
loudly all the while. 
A FEW days later I visited the islet 
again. The shags still seemed to 
be enraptured lovers, for they 
were all together in pairs and were twist- 
ing and curving their sinuous necks with- 
out cessation. Most of the eggs had 
hatched. Some of the nestlings w’ere 
just beginning to sprout their ducky 
down, and horribly ugly little monsters 
they were, with their black bodies, pink 
throats, blue bills, and Hottentot tufts 
all over their shiny turtlish forms. They 
