Nov., 1903 I 
THE CONDOR 
H3 
The west coast lagoons are long lake-like bodies of brackish water varying 
greatly in size and proportion but nearly always fringed by a more or less dense 
growth of mangroves. These are low, rarely rising over twenty-five or thirty feet, 
and as the leafage begins at the water’s edge they present a solid wall of dark 
green, back of which often rises the larger growth of scattered forests. Here and 
there among the mangroves occur dead and weathered trees, or lacking these, 
wide branching living trees which project over the water. These are favorite 
congregating places for the Mexican cormorants which, with their .somewhat grot- 
esque outlines, form a conspicuous figure of the bird life in such localities. These 
birds are not considered game by the Mexicans and this combined with the high 
price of ammunition, is sufficient to protect them from wanton killing so that they 
are not often disturbed and 
will permit a canoe to ap- 
proach within easy gunshot 
before they clumsily take 
flight. They are heavy-bod- 
ied and awkward and fre- 
(piently fall from the perch 
into the water and try to es- 
cape by swimming in piefer- 
ence to flight. When driven 
to take wing from such a 
perch they commonly make a 
broad circuit and returning 
pass near the canoe and turn 
their heads in evident curios- 
ity to examine the cause of 
the alarm. Their flight like 
that of other cormorants is 
steady and rather labored, 
and as they circle about an 
intruder they often glide for 
some distance on outspread 
wings, turning their long out- 
stretched necks toward the 
object of their curiosity and 
presenting almost as grotes- 
que an appearance as the 
snake- bird. 
. - , - , MEXICAN CORMORANT ON NEST, LAKE CHAPALA 
Although the cormorant 
had been familiar to me for a number of years, it was not until recently that I had 
the chance to learn an3'thing of its breeding habits — and this to my surprise oc- 
curred on Christmas day, apparently a most unpropitious season to go bird nest- 
ing, even in the tropics, on this side of the Equator. On December 23, 1902, Mr. 
Goldman and I reached Ocotlan, Jalisco, a small town located on the Santiago 
River close to the point where it flows out of the northeastern corner of Lake 
Chapala. This lake, the largest body of fresh water in Mexico, is on the south- 
western border of the tableland at an elevation of 5000 feet above the sea. 
In its greatest dimensions it measures about twenty by sixty miles. Its main 
tributary, the Lerma river, flows through extensive marshes into the eastern end of 
