BRITISH BIRDS. 367 



along with it the appearance of the wary circum- 

 spect plunderer, the unrelenting tyrant, and the 

 greedy insatiate glutton, rendered lazy only when 

 the appetite is palled, and then they sit puffing 

 forth the fetid fumes of a gorged stomach, vented 

 occasionally in the disagreeable croakings of their 

 hoarse hollow voice. Such is their portrait, such 

 the character, generally given of them by ornith- 

 ologists; and Milton seems to have put the finish- 

 ing hand to it, by making Satan personate the 

 Cormorant, while he surveys, undelighted, the 

 beauties of Paradise.* It ought, however, to be 

 observed, that this bird, like other animals, led 

 only by the cravings of appetite, and directed by 

 instinct, fills the place and pursues the course as- 

 signed to it by nature. 



* Paradise Lost, Book iv. i. 194 198. 



