THE CORMORANTS AND SHAGS. 
213 
Nestlings. — At first bare and of a leaden grey-colour, but 
afterwards becoming covered with dense sooty-brown down, 
and remaining in this till they are more than half the size of 
their parents. 
Characters — The Cormorant may be told from the Shag by 
its larger size and by having fourteen tail feathers. 1 have seen 
one specimen from Hungary which had fifteen rectrices. The 
colour is always more of a blue-black, not greenish like the 
Shag. 
The white filaments which adorn the head of the Cormo- 
rant, and the occipital crest, are apparently retained for a short 
time only. The female described was obtained in February, 
and has all the ornamental plumes developed to the fullest 
extent, including the white patch on the flanks, but these are 
all shed by the time that nesting commences, so that the 
real breeding plumage is exactly similar to that of the winter 
dress after the autumn moult. 
Eangc in Great Britain — Although mostly a bird of the sea- 
coasts, the Cormorant is often met with inland, and there is 
scarcely a county in the British Islands where stragglers have 
not been obtained at some time or other. It is found in most 
parts of our area on the coasts, but is commoner in some dis- 
tricts and rarer in others, where the Shag predominates. On 
the east coast of England, between the Thames and the Plum- 
ber, it is rarer, probably on account of the absence of breeding- 
places suitable to the species, but north of P'lamborough and 
along the Scottish coast it occurs plentifully, while on our west- 
ern coasts the Shag is the commonest of the two species. Mr. 
Ussher gives a long list of the counties in Ireland in which 
the Cormorant nests on the coast, and he says that several 
breeding colonies are to be met with on the islands of inland 
lakes, where they breed on trees, such as Lough Tawnyard in 
Co. Mayo, Lough Key in Roscommon, and Lough Cutra in 
Galway. In some of these, he says that the Cormorants 
breed in company with Herons in high trees. 
Range outside the British Islands. — The Cormorant is distributed 
in suitable localities throughout Europe and Northern Asia to 
Japan. It breeds in India and Burma, and is believed to 
extend to Australia and also to South Africa, but recently the 
