NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



was displayed most closely and effectively. From the 

 platform on which it stood expectant, the cormorant 

 used to dive in, and, using its wings with marvellous 

 rapidity, followed its prey through every twist and turn 

 until it had secured it. In such a confined space the 

 fish had no chance of escape, and was speedily bagged, 

 or rather pouched by the insatiable bird. But so good 

 a performer is the cormorant under water that even 

 where there is plenty of sea room a fish must be par- 

 ticularly active to escape this bird when he is hungry 

 and means business. 



The cormorant, with his dark, heavy form and slouch- 

 ing manners, his staring, fierce green eyes, and his 

 insatiable habits, is by no means a pleasant or an attrac- 

 tive bird. Few people, even among lovers of nature, 

 care much about him ; by anglers he is loathed as 

 heartily as the very fiend himself. Milton seems to 

 have been quite of the fisherman's way of thinking. 

 He describes Satan as entering paradise in the shape 

 of one of these birds. 



" Up he flew, and on the tree of life 

 Sat like a comorant devising death 

 To them that lived." 



Surely a very striking image this ! 



The Chinese, it is well known, have for ages tamed 

 and utilised the cormorant to aid them in fishing. It is 

 not so well known that these birds were, in the days 

 of hawking, occasionally employed in England in the 

 same manner. Whitelock, an old writer, tell us "that 

 he had a cast of them manned like hawks, which would 

 come to hand." He relates that the best of his birds 

 was one presented to him by Mr. Wood, " Master of 

 the Cormorants to Charles I." Willughby, speaking 

 of this sport in England, says, "When they (the 

 sportsmen) come to the rivers, take off their hoods, 



170 





