THE CORMORANT. 371 



may further serve so awkwardly-shaped a bird by enabling it 

 to cling to branches ; for although they usually frequent rocks 

 and precipices, they can, and very often do, perch on trees. 

 The poet Milton seems to have been aware of this, when he 

 describes Satan taking the form of this ill-favoured bird when 

 he first entered Paradise, devising the ruin of our first parents : 

 " Up he flew, and on the tree of life 



Sat like a Cormorant devising death 



To them that lived." 



The poet could not, indeed, easily have selected a fitter frame 

 for the foul fiend than that of a Cormorant ; there is something 

 so unearthly about him, as he is seen reposing on a rock, when 



Tiie Cormorant. 



gorged with food; his slouching form, his wet and vapid 

 wings dangling from his sides to catch the breeze, while his 

 weird, haggard, wildly-staring, emerald-green eyes scowl about 

 in all directions. 



The quantity of fish one of these birds will devour is 

 astonishing three or four pounds a day, or about half their 

 weight, a Cormorant weighing from six to seven pounds. 

 What should we say of a man eating seventy or eighty pounds 

 of beef or mutton at his daily meals ? which he would do were 

 his appetite as great in proportion as that of the Cormorant. 

 The fact is, that, like most birds living on fish, its digestion 



