Ail Ornithologist's Summer in Labr ador 
M. Abbott Frazar, 
Phalacrocorax carbo, Common Cormorant. 
Phalacrocorax dilophus , Double-crested Cormo- 
rant. While sailing eastward from Esquimaux 
Point, and when about seventy-five miles dis- 
tant from there, I met with my first colony of 
Cormorants, which proved to be a settlement 
of about twenty pair of Double-crested. Here, 
fully ten miles from shore, and on a small rock 
of less than a quarter of an acre in extent and 
which did not rise over ten feet out of water at 
high tide, they had their nests; which were 
placed promiscuously about on the bare rocks. 
It was on June 2nd that we met with them, 
and after some difficulty succedeed in mak- 
ing a landing, when we found the nests 
were constructed entirely of kelp and seaweed, 
freshly pulled from the bottom of the ocean. 
None of them held over four eggs and as they 
afterwards proved to be all fresh, it was un- 
doubtedly a second laying, the first having fall- 
en to the eggers. 
At Cape Whittle the only other colony I met 
with was located, and here on cliffs fully one 
hundred and fifty or two hundred feet high, 
about two hundred pair had their nests. They 
were all built of freshly broken twigs which 
the birds got from a small pond a little way 
back from the cliffs, where by swimming 
around close to the shore the birds could break 
oft' the branches from the small bushes above 
and fly with them to their chosen homes. The 
Double-crested built all over the cliff wherever 
a resting place could be found, but the “Com- 
mon” variety only nested close to the top. 
When I first visited the rookery on June 19th, 
many nests contained large young, which went 
to prove what the natives said, that they com- 
menced to build long before the snows of win- 
ter had disappeared, and they told me that it 
was not a rare thing to see nests placed where 
they would undoubtedly be tumbled into the 
sea as soon as their treacherous foundations 
would finally give way before the summer heat. 
The nests of the Common Comorant contained 
generally four or five eggs, but I was fortunate 
enough to take about five sets of six each. The 
eggs average considerably larger than those of 
the Double-crested, besides being more rounded 
or elliptical, while those of the latter species 
are quite pointed and never, as far as my expe- 
rience went, reached beyond five in number. 
O.& O. XII, Feb.l887.p./r-/ ?. 
14- Phalacrocorax dilophus. Double-crested Cormorant.— It is 
w.th great hesitation that 1 include this species, as none were seen by 
e.ther Mr. Robbins or myself. A fisherman informed me that a few pairs 
o a large black bird with two plumes on the sides of the head” yet nested 
on Shag Rock, where this species formerly bred in considerable numbers 
He also claimed to have found their eggs that summer. Unfortunately 
we were unable to visit Shag Rock ourselves to verify or disprove his 
statement. 
Auk, VI. April, 188©. p. 146 
