CORMORANTS AND PKLICANS. 133 



was shot once by a musket bullet through the throat which 

 not only killed the bird but cut in half a large eel which as 

 yet had been unable to find room in the interior! All birds 

 of the kind gorge themselves with fish after fish till, for the 

 time being, there is absolutely no more space. The young 

 feed from the half digested contents of the parent's gullet, 

 putting their own heads half way down the throat for the 

 purpose. The skin of the neck being very elastic can hold 

 a far larger number of fish than one would think. From the 

 way that tame cormorants balance themselves in the gunnel 

 of a punt one might infer that they would be at home on 

 trees. They are. 



Thence up he flc\v, and on the Tree of Life, 

 The middle tree and highest there that grew, 

 Sat like a cormorant, 



is what Milton tells us of the first approach of the Tempter 

 in Eden. Some kinds breed on low trees near their feeding 

 places, and it is not an uncommon thing to see others 

 standing on low-lying branches or posts over the water 

 whence they will dive after any prey they see passing 

 below. How well they swim is known to all who have 

 watched them either in their natural or domesticated 

 state. But how few people there must be who have any 

 clear conception of their grace once they have disappeared 

 from sight below the surface! Ashore they look almost as 

 clumsy as a goose. They move with no more grace than 

 does the waddling duck. Their flight possesses not the 

 faintest of faint hints to recall the winged symmetry and 

 matchless elegance of the sea-swallow. Once in the water, 

 however, it is seen that they are in their element. As with all 

 divers, their forward parts lie low. The graceful curve of their 

 back, with the little upward turns fore and aft, at the neck and 

 tail that is to say, forms a perfect bow-like arc, there is ample 

 weight of body to make the dive a very rapid one whenever 

 the centre of gravity has been upset by the quick dart of the 

 head and neck below the surface, and literally in a flash they 

 are gone. The term ''like a flash" comes from the days when 

 flint-lock fowling pieces with a powder pan were in use. 

 Diving at the flash, cormorants and other such birds usually 

 escaped being shot. But it is not even at the surface of the 

 water that the cormorant is at his best. To see that, one 

 must see him below, and that is a treat as rare as it is 

 astonishing. I shall never forget my one opportunity of 

 watching a band of trained cormorants fish a clear creek. 

 On hundreds of occasions I had seen them go below muddy 

 water and re-appear with their prey. But it is a totally 

 different thing when one can stand on a bank well above^ 

 and through the limpid liquid of a crystal stream watch 



