136 SPRING 



with bodies half immersed, or in long dives in chase of 

 their prey. There is something sinister and uncanny about 

 their whole appearance ; with their long snaky necks and 

 lean bodies, they seem very close to the primaeval flying 

 lizards out of which our modern birds developed. Milton's 

 simile of Satan sitting 'like a cormorant' on the Tree of 

 Life, 'devising death to them who lived,' is as illuminative 



CORMORANT 



of the bird as of the fiend. Cormorants love to spend long 

 hours sitting upright on a reef with their wings spread out 

 to dry in the sun. Their wings in this attitude look like 

 a cloth waved as a signal ; and a crew of fishermen have 

 before now launched a boat at sunrise, and crossed a bay 

 to rescue a supposed castaway, only to find themselves 

 confronted with the familiar and detested bird. There is 

 not even the slightest possibility that the cormorant would 

 enjoy the joke ; no creature alive is obviously so incapable 



