88 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Disagreeable form Disgusting manners. 



basest purposes, to survey with pain the beauties 

 of Paradise, and to sit devising death on the tree 

 of Jife. It has been remarked, however, of our 

 poet, that the making a water-fowl perch on a 

 tree, implied no great acquaintance with the his- 

 tory of nature. In vindication of Milton, Aris- 

 totle expressly says, that the cormorant is the 

 only water-fowl that sits on trees. We have 

 already seen the pelican of this number; and the 

 cormorant's toes seem as fit for perching upon 

 trees as for swimming; so that our epic bard 

 seems to have been as deeply versed in natural 

 history as in criticism." 



Bishop Newton, in his remarks on the follow- 

 ing lines of Milton, also defends the poet's choice 

 of this voracious sea-fowl as a proper emblem 

 of the destroyer of mankind." 



" Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life, 

 The middle tree and highest there that grew, 

 Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life 

 Thereby regain'd, but sat devising death 

 To them who liv'd ; nor on the virtue thought 

 Of that life-giving plant, but only us'd 

 For prospect, what well us'd had been the pledge 

 Of immortality." 



" Indeed/' says a modern writer, " this bird 

 seems to be of a multiform nature ; and wherever 

 fish are to be found, watches their migrations. 

 It is seen as well by land as sea ; it fishes in fresh- 

 water lakes, as well as in the depths of the ocean ; 

 it builds in the cliffs of rocks, as well as on trees; 

 and preys not only in the day time, but by night." 



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