THE ACCURATE MEASUREMENT OF TIME. 659 



large for one bird to take care of it alone, tAVO or three of them will 

 join to assist in bringing it in. 



The cormorants are trained for their business with great care. The 

 most intelligent birds are said to come from the province of Che-Kiang, 

 The eggs of the first spring laying, which usually takes place in Feb- 

 ruary, are collected and put under hens, the maternal love of the cor- 

 morant being only feebly developed. The young when first hatched, 

 being extremely weak and delicate, and prone to succumb at the slight- 

 est chill, are put into wadded baskets, where they can be kept at a uni- 

 form temperature. They are fed with pellets of beans and finely 

 chopped eel, till at the end of a month, when, having become nearly 

 covered with feathers, they are given the eel alone ; at the end of 

 another month, they are able to eat small fish whole, and are worth 

 five dollars a pair. When they have got their growth, which is about 

 five months after they are hatched, they are tethered by a string tied 

 around the foot on the banks of a stream or a pond. The trainer, 

 stirring the water with a pole, and whistling an air which the birds 

 learn is the signal for " take to the water," throws in some small fish, 

 which they attack with all the more voracity as they have not been too 

 well fed. The trainer then whistles another air, which is to be the 

 signal for coming back, and, that the birds may not be mistaken as 

 to its meaning, he pulls at the same time upon the cord that holds 

 them. These lessons are continued for two or three months, when the 

 scene of the practice is changed to the boats ; and at the end of another 

 month the cord is dispensed with. There are, of course, differences 

 in the capacity of cormorants as well as of men. While the stupid 

 ones are sent to the pot, the most sagacious and best trained male birds 

 are worth seven or eight dollars apiece, females less. The period of 

 service of the cormorants is short. They begin to lose their feathers 

 and to go into decrepitude in their fourth year/ and generally die be- 

 fore they are six years old. Whether this brevity of life is due to the 

 peculig,r style of feeding the birds, or is one of the inevitable attendants 

 of domesticity, is not known ; for we have no authentic information 

 respecting the length of life of cormorants in a wild state, — Translated 

 for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique. 



^«» 



THE ACCURATE MEASUEEMENT OF TIME. 



By THEO. B. WILLSON. 



THERE are few people who have much knowledge of the present 

 state of the science of measuring time. This is probably owing 

 to the scarcity of sources of information on the subject, for almost 

 every one has more or less interest in it. One might naturally sup- 

 pose that his jeweler could discourse intelligently, if not profoundly, 



