THE COMMON OH GREAT CORMORANT. 
241 
in its crop were found ^fourteen pollans B sufficient evidence, cer- 
tainly, that this individual had been fishing there, for nowhere else 
nearer than Lough Erne could this species of fish have been ob- 
tained. A scientific friend visiting Massareene deer-park, on the 
borders of Lough Neagh, on the 3rd of December, 1847, was at- 
tracted by the singular appearance of about a hundred cor- 
morants perched on trees (probably thirty feet in height) on a 
low wooded island of the lake, where they remained for two 
hours, or so long as he had an opportunity of observing them. 
The country-people there believe that these birds daily visit the sea, 
and that “ they would die if they did not get a drink of salt 
water within the twenty-four hours” 1 In the beginning of July 
1834 we saw cormorants about the lakes in the west, between 
Westport and Cong, and soon afterwards, about the lakes of Kil- 
larney. An old friend informs me, that previous to the last thirty- 
five years these birds were almost daily to be seen up the river 
Lagan, especially at high water, often perching on the overhang- 
ing trees at Annadale, where the flow of the tide terminates. 
Breeding -haunts . — This species bred in numbers, annually, at 
the Gobbins, until of late years; about 1845 being the last occa- 
sion on which it was known to do so. It built there very early in 
the season. “ Common cormorants formerly bred in considerable 
numbers at Down Hill, in the county of Londonderry, but since 
the recent blasting of the rocks for the formation of a railway, 
they have deserted that locality, and have resorted to some of the 
high rocky headlands adjacent to the Giant's Causeway, where 
they remain throughout the year. When fired at, they usually 
fly out to some distance at sea, but have been occasionally 
observed to plunge down almost perpendicularly from the rocks 
and evade the fowler by diving beyond his reach.”* This cormo- 
rant is said to nidify in the caves on the north of the island of 
Eathlin.t It has more than once come under my own notice in 
its breeding-haunts, which were lofty tabular rocks sheltered by 
* Mr. J. O’N. Higginson, 
f Dr. J. D. Marshall. It breeds at the Mull of Oe, Islay, the nearest land north 
of Rathlin. — W. T. 
VOL. III. 
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