244 
PELECANIM, 
islets called Reannies, off Cork harbour, on the 27th of April, 
1848, saw eggs, two to four in number, in about twenty nests of 
the cormorant, and several other nests were only completed. The 
pilfering of the eggs, during the absence of the owners, by a pair 
of ravens that had a nest in the same range of cliffs, will be found 
noticed in Yol. I. p. 806. All the cormorants here were in full 
nuptial plumage, displaying the white thigh-mark, light colour 
about the head, &c. This species nidifies in various small com- 
munities on the shelves of the rocky coast between the Reannies 
and the Sovereign Islands. 
At the marine rocks of the adjoining county of Waterford, at 
Ardmore and other places, cormorants build ;* and with reference 
most probably to the coast of Wexford, Mr. J. Poole has com- 
municated the following note: — “May 15th; the cormorant has 
eggs, some nearly fresh, some, and much the larger portion, nearly 
hatched, and from a few nests the young are excluded. Some 
young birds are nearly grown. The nests are placed in the hol- 
lows and crevices of a solitary rock (a few yards from the main 
land), about seventy or eighty feet high, and are composed of sea- 
weed, ferns, grass, and feathers ; eggs three to five. The young 
birds exhibit very curious gestures when disturbed or expecting 
the old ones with food, opening their bills, and causing their 
cheek-pouches to quiver or undulate with a very rapid motion.” 
At the island of Lambay, off the Dublin coast, cormorants an- 
nually nidify. f Marine rocks only have hitherto been mentioned 
as breeding-haunts. Upon an island in a fresh-water lake at 
Castlemartyr, county of Cork, the seat of the Earl of Shannon, 
the gamekeeper reckoned more than eighty nests of the cormo- 
rant on Scotch fir-trees not less than sixty feet in height, about 
the year 18334 
The spread wings of this bird, after the plumage has become 
saturated by long diving, have often been commented on by authors 
* Mr. R. Ball. t Mr. R. J. Montgomery. 
X Proceedings of Zoological Society of London, 1847, p. 97. 
