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 Nov., I9O31 THE CONDOR I43 The west coast lagoons are long lake-like bodies of brackish water varying greatly in size and proportion but nearly always fringed by a more or less dense growth of mangroves. These are low, rarely rising over twenty-five or thirty feet, and as the leafage begins at the water's edge they present asolid wall of dark green, back of which often rises the larger growth of scattered forests. Here and there among the mangroves occur dead and weathered trees, or lacking these, wide branching living trees which project over the water. These are favorite congregating places for the Mexican cormorants which, with their somewhat grot- esque outlines, form a conspicuous figure of the bird life in such localities. These birds are not considered game by the Mexicans and this combined with the high price of ammunition, is sufficient to protect them-from wanton killing so that they are not often disturbed and will permit a canoe to ap- proach within easy gunshot before they clumsily take flight. They are heavy-bod- ied and awkward and fre- quently fall from the perch into the water and try to es- cape by swimming in plefer- ence to flight. When driven to take wing from such a perch they commonly make a broad circuit and returning pass near the canoe and turn their heads in evident curios- ity to examine the cause of the alarm. Their flight like that of other cormorants is steady and rather labored, and as they circle about an intruder they often glide for some distance on outspread wings, turning their hmg out- stretched necks toward the object of their curiosity and presenting almost as grotes- que an appearance as the snake-bird. Although the cormorant MXICAN CORMORANT ON HE:ST, LhK CHAPALA had been familiar to me for a number of years, it was not until recently that I had the chance to learn anything of its breeding habits--and this to my surprise oc- curred on Christmas day, apparently a most unpropitious season to go bird nest- ing, even in the tropics, on this side of the Equator. On December 3, t9o, Mr. Goldman and I reached Ocotlan, Jalisco, a small town located on the Santiago River close to the point where it flows out ot the northeastern corner of Lake Chapala. This lake, the largest body of fresh water in Mexico, is on the south- western border of the tableland at an elevation of 5ooo feet above the sea. In its greatest dimensions it measures about twenty by sixty miles. Its main tributary, the Lerma river, flows through extensive marshes into the eastern end of