THE DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT. 
7 
or draped over the top, with wings half raised or hanging as if 
drying in the sun. I suspect that the cormorant is deficient in 
oily matter with which to annoint its feathers for it does not 
seem to be as perfectly adapted to aquatic conditions as most 
other water birds. Like its near relative, the Anhinga, which 
has a similar habit, it seems to find it necessary to dry its plumage 
after prolonged submersion. At such times it is a most awkward 
and ungainly sight, sitting with relaxed wings and body, limp 
and flaccid as a garment hung on a bush to dry. 
The cormorants lay from 3 to 4 eggs, but there is a great 
mortality in the early stages of the nestlings. The eggs hatch 
one by one at considerable intervals of time and the eldest is a 
large strapping youngster before the youngest is out of the shell 
and, in fact, would hardly be supposed to belong to the same 
brood. It is large and strong and both requires and is able to 
take much more than its proper proportion of the food delivered ; 
hence the disparity of size tends to increase rather than diminish 
as the brood develops. This undue development of one at the 
expense of the others was perfectly obvious in all the nests ob- 
served. The larger nestlings bully and badger their weaker 
brothers and sisters unmercifully, picking and worrying them 
continually. This probably helps to explain the fact that, as 
the chicks increase in age, there are invariably fewer in the nest 
until, in the latest stages observed, we did not see a 
nest that contained more than one bird. As a certain percentage 
of birds lose their entire brood in one way or another, I do not 
think that, on an average, a pair raises to adolesence more than 
one nestling each season. The fact, that, in spite of their slow 
rate of reproduction, the species is apparently increasing, 
points to the cormorant being a remarkably hardy bird, well 
adapted to its conditions, probably of long life, and without 
dangerous enemies. Throughout the day cormorants can be 
seen passing in and out of the basin, but in the afternoon about 
three or four o’clock the decided movement is outward to the 
rookeries and by sun-down the inner waters are deserted. 
On July 18 I posted myself in the little pavilion opposite 
the Baker house, overlooking the narrow strait separating the 
basin from the outer bay, and counted the cormorants passing. 
