at the time, and should they be thought minute to the point of tediousness, I can only in extenuation plead the title of this book, whilst assuring the reader, that however it may lie between us two, the bird, at any rate, is in no way to blame.
Courtship, love-making.—"The way in which the male cormorant makes love to the female is as follows:—Either at once from where he stands, or after first waddling a step or two, he makes an impressive jump or hop towards her, and stretching his long neck straight up, or even a little backwards, he at the same time throws back his head so that it is in one line with it, and opens his beak rather widely. In a second or so he closes it, and then he opens and shuts it again several times in succession, rather more quickly. Then he sinks forward with his breast on the rock, so that he lies all along it, and fanning out his small, stiff tail, bends it over his back whilst at the same time stretching his head and neck backwards towards it, till with his beak he sometimes seizes and, apparently, plays with the feathers. In this attitude he may remain for some seconds more or less, having all the while a languishing or ecstatic expression, after which he brings his head forward again, and then repeats the performance some three or four or, perhaps, half-a-dozen times. This would seem to be the full courting display, the complete figure so to speak, but it is not always fully gone through. It may be acted part at a time. The first part, commencing with the hop—the simple aveu as it may be called—is not always followed by the ecstasy in the recumbent posture, and the last is still more often indulged in without this preliminary,
