CHAP, xvi.] TEETH OF BIRDS. 133 



the cormorant, who, feeding on good-sized fish, is always seen 

 diving in the large deep pools, where they are more likely to 

 find trout big enough to satisfy their voracious appetite. The 

 throat of the cormorant stretches to a very great extent, and 

 their mouth opens wide enough to swallow a good-sized sea- 

 trout. I saw a cormorant a few days ago engaged with a large 

 white trout which he had caught in a quiet pool, and which he 

 seemed to have some difficulty in swallowing. The bird was 

 swimming with the fish across his bill, and endeavouring to get 

 it in the right position, that is, with the head downwards. At 

 last, by a dexterous jerk, he contrived to toss the trout up, and, 

 catching it in his open mouth, managed to gulp it down, though 

 apparently the fish was very much larger in circumference than 

 the throat of the bird. The expanding power of a heron's 

 throat is also wonderfully great, and I have seen it severely 

 tested when the bird was engaged in swallowing a flounder 

 something wider than my hand. As the flounder went down, 

 the bird's throat was stretched out into a fan-like shape, as he 

 strained, apparently half-choked, to swallow it. These fish- 

 eating birds having no crop, all they gulp down, however large 

 it may be, goes at once into their stomach, where it is quickly 

 digested. Like the heron, the cormorant swallows young water- 

 fowl, rats, or anything that comes in its way. 



There is a peculiarity in the bills of most birds which live on 

 worms or fish : they are all more or less provided with a kind of 

 teeth, which, sloping inwards, admit easily of the ingress of 

 their prey, but make it impossible for anything to escape after it 

 has once entered. In the goosander and merganser this is par- 

 ticularly conspicuous, as their teeth are so placed that they hold 

 their slippery prey with the greatest facility. The common 

 wild duck has it also, though the teeth are not nearly so pro- 

 jecting or sharp; feeding as it does on worms and insects, it does 

 not require to be so strongly armed in this respect as those birds 

 that live on fish. 



I wonder that it has never occurred to any one in this country 

 to follow the example of the Chinese in teaching the cormorant 

 to fish. The bold and voracious disposition of this bin! makes it 

 easy enough to tame, and many of our lochs and river- mouths 

 would be well adapted for a trial of its abilities in fishing; and 



