124 
THE COMMON CORMORANT. 
notes, mark the tremulous motions of their expanded throats, and the curious 
vacillations of their heads and necks ! The kind mother gently caresses each 
alternately with her bill ; the little ones draw nearer to her, and, as if 
anxious to evince their gratitude, rub their heads against hers. How 
pleasing all this is to me ! But at this moment the mother accidentally 
looks upward, her keen eye has met mine, she utters a croak, spreads her 
sable wings, and in terror launches into the air, leaving her brood at my 
mercy. Far and near, above and beneath me, the anxious parent passes and 
repasses ; her flight is now unnatural, and she seems crippled, for she would 
fain perform those actions in the air, which other birds perform on the 
ground or on the water, in such distressing moments of anxiety for the fate 
of their beloved young. Her many neighbours, all as suspicious as herself, 
well understand the meaning of her mode of flight, and one after another 
take to wing, so that the air is in a manner blackened with them. Some fly 
far over the waters, others glide along the face of the bold rock, but hone 
that have observed me realight, and how many of those there are I am pretty 
certain, as the greater number follow in the track of the one most concerned. 
Meanwhile the little ones, in their great alarm, have crawled into a recess, 
and there they are huddled together. I have witnessed their pleasures and 
their terrors, and now, crawling backwards, I leave them to resume their 
ordinary state of peaceful security. 
It was on the 3d of July, 1833, about three in the morning, that I had the 
pleasure of witnessing the scene described above. I was aware before that a 
colony of Cormorants had nested on the ledges of the great rocky wall that 
separated our harbour of Whapatiguan from the waters of the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence. A strong gale had ruffled the sea, and the waves dashed with 
extreme violence against the rocks, to which circumstance, I believe, was 
owing my having remained awhile unseen and unheard so near the birds, 
which were not more than four or five yards below me. The mother 
fondled and nursed her young with all possible tenderness, disgorged some 
food into the mouth of each, and coaxed them with her bill and wings. 
The little ones seemed very happy, billed with their mother, and caressed 
her about the breast. When the parent bird flew off on observing me, the 
young seemed quite frightened, squatted at once on their broad nest, and 
then crawled with the aid of their bills until they reached a recess, where 
they remained concealed. 
On another occasion, my young friends Lincoln and Cooledge, along 
with my son, went to the same rocks, for the purpose of bringing me a nest 
and some of the young Cormorants. They reported that, in one instance, 
they surprised the parent birds close beneath them, apparently asleep, resting 
on their rumps in an upiight position, with the head thrust under the wing, 
