164 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



THE CORMORANT. 



THIS bird, which was unclean to the Hebrews (Lev. xi. 17; 

 Deut. xiv, 17) is about the size of a large Muscovy duck, and may 

 be distinguished from all other birds of this kind, by its four toes 

 being united together by membranes, and by the middle toe being 

 toothed or notched, like a saw, to assist it in holding its fishy prey. 

 Its head and neck are of a sooty blackness, and the body thick and 

 heavy, more inclining in figure to that of the goose than the gull. 

 The bill is straight, till near the end, where the upper chap bends 

 into a book. 



But notwithstanding the seeming heaviness of its make, there are 

 few birds more powerfully predacious than the cormorant. Form- 

 ed with the grossest appetites, this unclean bird has the most rank 

 and disagreeable smell, and is more foetid, even when in its most 

 healthful state, than carrion. Its form, says an ingenious writer, is 

 disagreeable ; its voice is hoarse and croaking ; and all its qualities 

 obscene. No wonder, then, that Milton should make Satan per- 

 sonate this bird, when he sent him upon the basest purposes, to 

 survey with pain the beauties of Paradise, and to sit devising death 

 on the tree of life. It has been remarked, indeed, of our poet, that 

 the making a water fowl perch on a tree, implied no great ac- 

 quaintance with the history of nature. But, in vindication of Mil- 

 ton, it must be observed, that Aristotle expressly says, the cormo- 

 rant is the only water fowl that sits on trees ; so that our epic bard 

 seems to have been as deeply versed in natural history as in criti- 

 cism. 



The cormorant is trained up in China, and other parts of the 

 world, for the purpose of taking fish, after which it dives with great 

 dexterity and perseverance. 



