THE TAME CORMORANT. 247. 



morant, wlio, though a female, went by the name of 

 Jack, had the oddest ways of showing her attachment 

 I ever saw. The hops she gave and the faces she made, 

 with a prolonged " Oh " at the end of them, her sea- 

 green eyes, brilliant with affection when she came to 

 me on the lawn, were, though uncouth, very entertain- 

 ing. Her games at play with the graceful gazelle were 

 extraordinary, and it was not possible to see more 

 different creatures joining in one common sport than 

 those two pets presented in their happy hours. The 

 gazelle bounding all-fours around and over the cor- 

 morant, and the cormorant uttering short hoarse 

 notes and trying to peck her, and waddling after the 

 deer in the hope of a closer meeting. Then the ga- 

 zelle would threaten to butt with her horns, which 

 always made the cormorant get very upright and 

 thin, the plumage drawn closely to the body, as if 

 well aware of the danger ; when if the gazelle did 

 charge, the cormorant was obliged to shuffle and 

 dodge out of the way ; but if she succeeded to meet 

 the soft nose of the gazelle with her powerfully sharp 

 beak, the gazelle would bound yards into the air, and 

 relinquish the mimic battle. Poor Zellie lies in a 

 little wood adjacent to the lawn at Beacon, beneath a 

 stone, near the last home of other favourites, on 

 which is the following inscription from the pen of her 

 sorrowing owner : — 



" To the INIemory of a Gazelle brought home from Syria by Captain 

 the Honourable M, F. F. Berkeley, of II. M. S. the Thunderer, after the 

 fall of Acre. — She died in December, 1845." 



" The warmth of summer's sun may trace 

 The tend'rest wild-flower here, 

 INIay brighten in this lonely place 

 The night-wept dewy tear. 



B 4 



