Common Cormorant. 519 



the feathers, at the same time covering itself with the water. It 

 may often be seen perched on rails or posts at the water's edge, 

 more especially on the buoys which mark the channels through 

 the shallow waters of the Wash on the coast of Norfolk and 

 other similar mud-banks at the mouths of rivers; and very 

 unpleasant and uncanny do they look as they so perch them- 

 selves, in my opinion. It will not be forgotten that Milton, with 

 great j udgment, as I think, represented the arch-fiend as taking 

 the form of a Cormorant. They breed in colonies, occasionally 

 in trees, like the Herons, but more commonly on lofty cliffs and 

 precipitous rocks. It kills its prey previous to swallowing it, 

 by squeezing it in its powerful and hooked beak. The colour of 

 its plumage is bluish-black, with metallic green reflections ; and 

 it has patches of pure white on its thighs, and a white throat. 

 The tail is composed of stiff hard feathers, and is frequently used 

 on land as a prop to support the body. It is tamed by th e 

 Chinese, and trained to take fish, being cast into the water after 

 its finny quarry, much as a falconer will, in hawking, cast off his 

 bird at a heron, or the courser slip his greyhound after a hare ; 

 only in the case of the voracious Cormorant it is found 

 necessary to fasten an iron ring round the bird's neck, or the 

 prey would be instantly swallowed. This sport, which is still 

 practised in China, was at one time an English pastime, and was 

 in great repute in the sixteenth century ; and as there are still 

 the high offices attached to the court of ' Master of the Buck- 

 hounds,' and ' Hereditary Grand Falconer,' so in former days it 

 was no slight honour to be c Master of the Cormorants ' to our 

 sovereign lord King Charles I. Previous to his reign, fishing 

 with Cormorants had become a fashionable amusement in the 

 reign of James I., who had a regular establishment for these 

 birds at Westminster; and the royal Cormorants trained for 

 fishing wore leather collars, often ornamented with silver.* 



It is a very common bird on all our rocky coasts ; and I have 

 met with colonies of it far up the Nile, at least 450 miles from 

 the sea ; so that fresh water must be as palatable to it as salt, 



Harting in his edition of ' White's Selborne,' p. 164. 



