CORMORANTS
[7'o the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—A cordon of cormorants, or " scarfs " as they are called here, hemmed in a vast shoal of young coal fish sellags in Wick Harbour the other day. The corner into which they were driven was seething with fish and the line of black birds with twisting necks looked not unlike destroyers. One would imagine fear would have put the sellags off the feed, but boys fishing from the quay were hauling them up as soon as the bait struck the water.
Scarfs are regarded as very destructive and a fish curer shot one near the harbour that had just swallowed a flounder. The bird drifted ashore in about half an hour and was dis- sected. The curer says that the flounder was half devoured by a mass of worms, and it was his theory that the worms ihmpelled the bird to fish so hard. How they indicated to t heir host that stores were exhausted, my friend could not
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