THE COMMON COEMOKANT. 365 



and it plunges upon its prey from a considerable height, 

 dives after it, and is equally bold and successful. It can 

 gorge an immense quantity ; its own weight of fish, at least, 

 in the course of one day. Its stomach and gullet are capable 

 of great distension, the latter of as much as the naked skin 

 on the front of the neck, which skin appears merely to accom- 

 modate the enlargements of the internal passage better than 

 they could be accommodated by a skin covered with feathers, 

 and not having, as has sometimes been said, a pouch or reser- 

 voir in which to carry a store of provisions. 



The cormorant builds on the high ledges of the rocks, 

 generally in or near the currents in which an ample supply 

 of swallowable fish may be obtained ; though as the bill 

 of the bird is fully five inches long and very wide in the 

 gape, and the gullet dilatable to anything that the bill can 

 capture, it can manage fishes of considerable size. Whether 

 it descends upon them from the rock, where it often sits on 

 the watch, or from the wing, or skims after them in the 

 water by swimming or diving, at both of which it appears to 

 be equally expert, it seizes them crossways with its bill ; but 

 it does not, like the heron, bring them to land in order to 

 turn them into that position in which they can most easily 

 be swallowed. It can turn them in the water, or if it fail in 

 that, it can jerk them into the air, catch them as they fall 

 head foremost, and so swallow them with ease. It will some- 

 times fish till it is so loaded that it gets on wing with 

 difficulty, and the process of energetic digestion so stupefies 

 it, that if its seat on the rock can be reached, it is not 

 difficult to capture. In winter it sometimes follows the 

 fishes up the estuaries of rivers, and in flat countries perches 

 on trees, or, in some parts of the world where it is not 

 disturbed, on the house-tops. The nests are generally on 

 lofty and insulated rocks, often a number of them together, 

 and made of a few sticks and sea-weeds. The eggs are 



