WHITE-BREASTED CORMORANT. 
numbers, carrying on its breeding pursuits, and a note in my diary says : 
‘ The nests were placed on the rocks of this barren reef and composed of sea- 
weed and bits of saltbush and saltweed : two, three, and four eggs were 
found in a clutch, the two former being common and the latter number 
rare : there were nests not yet laid in, up to large young ones with feathers 
just coming. . . . The Silver Gulls were also there, but they were not breeding, 
and they came down on the Cormorants’ nests, and ate the eggs at every 
chance.’ On returning to the Reef next day to obtain photographs of the 
birds we found that these robbers (the silver gulls) but completely demolished 
the whole rookery of cormorants, the eggs being eaten up, and the young 
both large and small laying about dead and mangled by the gulls, but strange 
to say a rookery of Crested Terns [Sterna hergii) had not been molested by 
the robbers, although hundreds of eggs lay about on the ground in these 
birds’ ‘ nests,’ and the birds had vacated the eggs at our approach : whether 
this was on account of the coloration of the eggs assimilating the surrounding 
ground, or whether it was because it was eggs of their own kind it is hard 
to say. 
“ On the expedition to Bass’s Straits on the SS. ‘ Manawatia ’ in con- 
nection with the Eighth Congress of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists’ 
Union, we visited Storehouse Island near Babel Island, on Dec. 4, and found 
several rookeries of these birds, the nests containing fresh eggs up to large 
birds just ready to fly, showing how varied the nesting times of these birds 
are. In this instance the normal clutch was three eggs. . . . (On the Coorong) 
these were the most plentiful of the ‘ shag ’ family noted, and were generally 
perched on some stake or snag in the water or swimming about and diving : 
they are expert swimmers and divers.” 
Littler* writes : “ The first birds to come under our notice (on Ninth 
Island, Bass Strait) were White-breasted Cormorants [PJialacrocorax gouldi). 
On a rocky isthmus running out from the south-east corner of the island was 
a large rookery with incubating operations in full swing. There were beWeen 
100 and 150 nests, the majority containing eggs. The rookery was divided 
into two parts, the portion on the landward side containing eggs absolutely 
fresh ; some of the nests furthest inland were only just ready for their 
reception : the nests towards the extremity of the isthmus contained eggs 
somewhat incubated. They were bulky structures of variously coloured 
seaweed ; the egg cavity occasionally contained fragments of tussock-grass, 
but usually no lining other than fragments of sea debris was used. They were 
placed about two feet apart, on top of the rocks, which were heavily lime- 
washed. After taking some photographs of the sitting birds — for they 
* Emu, Vol. IX., p. 142, 1910. 
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