Storks, Herons, and Pelican Tribe 



451 



Photo bj/ J). Le Souef] IMcUjov/nie. 



YOUiNG AUSTRALIAN PELICAN. 



Pelicans, like gannets and cormorants, are hatched perfectly naked 



and quite blind. 



Pelicans are natives of the tropical and 

 temperate regions of the Old and New Worlds, 

 and live in flocks often numbering many thou- 

 sands. The nest is placed on the ground, and 

 therein are deposited two white eggs. The young 

 are helpless for some time after hatching. 



In all some six-and-thirty species of 

 Cormorants are known to science, of which two 

 are commonly to he met with round the British 

 coasts, one of which also travels inland to establish 

 itself on such lakes and rivers as may afford it 

 support. 



In various parts of the world cormorants are 

 taken when young and trained to catch fish : 

 sometimes for sport, or — as in China—to furnish 

 a livelihood for their owners. At one time the 

 Master of the Cormorants was one of the officers 

 iu the Royal Household of England, the post 

 having been created in 1611 by James I. The 

 method of hunting is as follows : — After fastening 

 a ring around the neck, the bird is cast off into 

 the water, and, diving immediately, makes its way beneath the surface with incredible speed, 

 and, seizing one fish after another, rises in a short sjiace of time with its mouth full and 

 throat distended by the fish, which it has been unable to swallow by reason of the restraining 

 ring. With these captures it dutifully returns to its keeper, who deftly removes the fish, and 

 either returns the bird to the water, or, giving it a share of the spoil, restores it to its perch. 



Cormorants nest either in trees or on the ground ; they lay from four to six eggs, and- 

 the j'oung feed themselves by thrusting their heads far down the parents' throats and helping 

 themselves to the half-digested fish which they find there. 



The cormorant has a certain sinister appearance equalled by no other bird, so that its 



introduction in Milton's " Paradise 

 Lost" (Book IV., 194) seems particu- 

 larly appropriate. Satan, it will be 

 remembered, is likened to a cor- 

 morant : — 



So clomb this first grand Thief into G-od's 

 fold- 



Tbence up he flew, and in the Tree of Life, 

 The middle tree and highest there that grew, 

 Sat like a cormorant. 



The curious bottle-green plumage, 

 green eyes, long hooked beak, and 

 head surmounted by a crest of the 

 smaller sea-loving representative of 

 the two British species were doubt- 

 less familiar enough to Milton before 

 blindness overtook him. 



Some of our readers may have 

 made the acquaintance of the cor- 

 morant's nearest ally, the Darter, or 

 Snake-neck, in the Fish-house at the ' 



Plwto bij W. SavMe-Ke , ^ il/ord-on-Sca. 



YOUNG PELICANS. 



Young pelicans never develop long down-feathers, like gannets and frigate-birds. 



