n i l
ii) i I
14.
. COMMON
SHAG.
D e sc r ip t if » .
Place and
Manners.
the feat of Sir 'James Graham. A perfon who faw them fettle, fired
at random at them in the dark fix or feven times, without either
killing any, or frightening them away , furprifed at this, he came
again at day-light, and killed one of them, when the reft took
wing*. It rnoftly frequents the neighbourhood of the feay for
the fake of fifhing, which it does by diving after its prey 1
and is obferved now and then to take the jijh out of the bill
with the clawsy in order to aflift its flight. The fkin is very
tough, and is ufed by the Greenlanders for garments; they alfo
fometimes eat the flefh; and the fkin o f the jaws, like others of
this clafs, ferves them for bladders to buoy up their fmaller kinds
offijhing darts.
Pelecanus graculus, Lin. Syjl. i. p. 217. 4*““ Faun• Suec. N° 146.-—Brut/.
N° 121.—Muller, N° 147.
Le petit Cormoran, Brif. Orn. vi. p. 516. 2.
. . —. . ■■■-----ou le Ni'gaud, Buf. Oif. viii. p. 319. •
Shagge, or Crane, Rail Syn. p. 123. A. 4.—Will. Orn. p. 330. pi. 63.
The Shag, Ar£i. Zool. N° 508.
Lev, Muf.
T E N G T H two feet fix inches: extent three feet eight:
weight four pounds. Head and neck black, glofled like
filk with green: the back and coverts of the wings of the fame
colour, edged with purplifh black: belly dufky and dullj the
middle cinereous : tail confifting of twelve feathers, dufky glofled
with green: legs black: middle claw ferrated.
Shags frequent feveral parts of Great Britain and Ireland j alfo
Sweden, Norway, and Iceland; and are faid to build in trees, in
* Pr. Heyjham.
o the
is
599
the manner of Corvorants; were obferved particularly to do lb
in the wood of Sevenhuys, near Leyden, in Holland, fo long as
the trees remained*. The eggs are long and white f . It is
faid to be a very ftupid bird when on ihore, but difficult to ffiooe
while in the water: fwims with the head ereft, the body almoft
immerfed in the water, and when a gun is difeharged at it, the
moment it lee£ the flalh immediately darts under water.
In the account of the Shag given by IVillughby, as alfo that of O b s e r v a t io n «.
Brijfon, the chin is faid to be white, and the under parts more
ot lefs inclining to afh-colour. Linnaeus obferves, that the Shag
agrees with the Corvorant in all things, except in being fmaller;
and fays, that the whole under fide, from the chin to the thighs,
is marked with tellaceous white fpots: he likewife fuppofes the
probability of this bird proving a young Corvorant £. We believe,
however, that the Corvorant and Shag are diftinft birds, not
at all related to each other; and indeed the firft having fourteen
feathers in the tail,, and the other but twelve, feems to decide the
matter indifputably, were there no other circumftance to prove it.
It is therefore not improbable that the difference of deferiptions
in the above-named authors has merely arifen from their having
taken them from the younger Corvorants, which vary exceedingly.
* Book of Nature, part i. p. 193. f Ray. Witlughly.
I Linn&us feparates the Pelican genus into two divifions; the one with the
edges of the mandible ferrated, the other /month ; but by miilake the reparation
takes place before his Graculus or Shag, whereas it ihould not have done fo till
after the defeription of that bird, or before the Pelecanus Bajfanus.— See SyJI,
Nat, i. p. 217.
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