THE CORMORANT. 259 



appropriate remarks in a volume of essays entitled " Holi- 

 day Papers " (p. 65). " The great-crested grebe, or loon," 

 he says, " is a giant compared to our little friend the dab- 

 chick, and altogether makes a more respectable appear- 

 ance, both in picture and pond. The habits and figure 

 of the two birds, though, are much the same. There are 

 numbers of loons oh the ' broads ' of Norfolk. Indeed it 

 is in East Anglia that I have most especially watched the 

 dabchick. These loons, like the lesser grebes, incubate 

 and leave their eggs in the wet, and meet with the 

 same ridiculous failure when they attempt to walk. 

 Like them, they are capital divers, and begin from the 



egg-" 



Close to the divers in the natural system of birds come 

 the cormorants, whose powers of swimming are in no way 

 inferior to those of the species we have just named. 

 They swim so low in the water that nothing but the 

 head, neck, and top of the back appear above the surface. 

 The tail, composed of stiff elastic feathers, is submerged 

 and used as a rudder, and the wings as oars. The address 

 with which they dive, and the rapidity of their movements, 

 are wonderful ; no less so than the pertinacity with which 

 they pursue their prey. Voracious in the extreme, 



" Insatiate cormorant." 



Richard II. Act ii. Sc. i ; 



they are unwearied and active fishers, following their prey 



