COTtMOTlATfT. 
town, at all events it occurred at the time. A sailor, for 
the sum of five shillings, undertook to stand on the top of 
the spire: he first ascended one of the pinnacles, on which 
he stood on one foot, and next went up one side of the 
spire, but finding one of the knobs, with which it is studded, 
broken off, he descended, and succeeded in another place. 
He then tied his neckerchief to the weathercock, and danced 
a hornpipe round it, on the millstone at the top. The spire 
was at that time about two hundred and seventy feet high, 
the uppermost portion having been struck down by lightning. 
It has since been restored to its original height of three 
hundred feet. 
Nothing is more interesting than to see a Cormorant 
fishing, so well does he swim, and so quickly does he dive. 
There he is, long and low in the water, like a pirate craft, 
and equally swift for his size. To pursue is to capture, and 
to overtake is death. Nor is he ever becalmed, wind-bound, 
or without the weather-gage; or if he floats indeed on a 
surface unruffled by a breath of air and as smooth as glass, 
he has oars which are never motionless, and his upright head 
is unceasingly on the look out. Now he raises up his body, 
and down below and onwards he plunges, as if in the act 
of making a sommersault: you cannot help but look with 
interest for his re-appearance, and on a sudden he starts up 
after a lengthened dive, where you perhaps expected him, or 
still more likely in a different spot—a fish you may be almost 
sure he has. 
In the old days of the flint-and-steel guns, the first flash 
used to send the Cormorant down, so quick was his eye, and 
even now it is difficult to get within shot. They fly strongly 
and well, though not very fast, and at a considerable height, 
if over the land. They may often be seen standing on the 
shore or rocks apparently to dry their wings, previous to 
which the one kept by Montagu was observed to beat the 
water violently with its wings without moving from the spot, 
then shake its whole body, ruffle its feathers, at the same 
time covering itself with water, and this many times together 
with short intervals of rest. They are able to perch on trees. 
The young dive instinctively even from the very first. 
It is curious to watch the Cormorant swallowing, or 
attempting to swallow a fish, eel, or other, too large to be 
got down at once; sometimes as much as half an hour is 
passed in the attempt, before a successful issue is come to* 
