332 PHILOSOPHY vs. THE PIIALACROCOR AX C1U5TATUS. 
to the ship, which had been following the boat slowly 
in, that she might come thus far, at any rate, without 
dangei’. In about ten minutes after this, she was 
alongside of us, when she let go her anchor, and com- 
menced to roll with such energy that we experienced no 
little difficulty in approaching and climbing her rusty 
old sides. 
The noise created by the chain in running out after 
the anchor, seemed to cause considerable alarm to im- 
mense numbers of a large and black duck-like bird, that 
had their thousand nests in the crevices of the rock under 
which we had anchored, and who left said nests with a 
sharp discordant cry, as the unusual sound startled them 
in their isolated haunt and caused them to fly over and 
about us in inconceivable numbers. They proved to be 
the acpiatic fowl vulgarly known as the shag, and to the 
ornithologist as the “Phalacrocorax cristatus” — a crested, 
long-necked cormorant, that we subsequently shot in 
great numbers as an article of food, (don’t start, reader,) 
though I must acknowledge that the captain and a tew 
other philosophers were the only ones that ever succeeded 
in the treble task of swallowing, keeping down, and pro- 
perly digesting their (to me) unsavory flesh. From the 
im'nwise numbers of this bird which covered this pile ot 
rocks, we called the principal one ‘^Shag Rock,” and, as 
such, included it in our survey. 
We had no sooner furled sails and got the ropes laid 
up about the decks, than two boats were called away, one 
to go in search of coal along the inner shore of the 
curved promontory, and the other to follow down the 
mainland to the bottom of the pot-hook. In the first 
