CLASS II. AYES: ORDER 8. XATATORES. 



33( 



lUB bLACK CORMOKAXT. 



and voracious fislier. In some countries, as in China, and formerly in England, the skill of the 

 cormorant in fishing was turned to profit; for by buckling a ring about the lower part of the 

 neck, to prevent deglutition, and accustoming it to return with its acquisitions in the bill to its 

 master, it was made a useful and domestic fisher. On the rivers of China, cormorants, though 

 of a different but very similar species, P. Sinenis, thus arranged, are perched on the prows of boats, 

 and at a signal made by striking the water with an oar, they instantly plunge, and soon emerge 

 with a fish, which is taken from them ; and this toil continued till its master is satisfied, he looses 

 the collar, and finishes the day by allowing it to fish for itself. But it is only hunger which gives 

 activity to the cormorant ; when glutted with its meal, which is soon acquired, it relaxes into its 

 native indolence, and dozes away the greatest part of its time in gluttonous inebriety, perched in 

 solitude on naked and insulated or inaccessible rocks, to which it prudently retires for greater 

 safety from the intrusion of enemies. 



Another common species is the Shag or Green Cormorant, F. graculus ; it is twenty-seven 

 inches long ; chiefly frequents the sea, and has been caught in a crab-pot one hundred and twenty 

 feet below the surface of the water. Its habits and distribution are similar to those of the 

 Black Cormorant. 



The following species are noted in the Catalogue of the Smithsonian Institution : Pallas's 

 Cormorant, Graculus perspicillatus : Double-crested Cormorant, G. dilophus : Florida Cor- 

 morant, G. Floridanus : Mexican Cormorant, G, Mexicanus : Brandt's Cormorant, G. pen- 

 icillatus; Violet-Green Cormorant, G. violaceus : the Tufted Cormorant, G. Cincinnatus ; 

 all found on some parts of the coasts of North America. 



Gemis SULA: Sula. — This includes the Gaimeis, which resemble the cormorants in their form 

 and their voracity. The Common Gannet, S. alba — called the Channel-Goose and also Soland 

 or Solan-Goose, a corruption of Solent — the name of the narrow sea between the Isle of "Wight 

 and the main-land of England, where this species is common — rarely swims much, and is quite in- 

 capable of diving. These birds take the fishes of which their prey consists, by flying over the sur- 



VoL. II.— 43. 



