162 THE CORMORANT. 
straining violently, with repeated efforts to gulp it ;' 
and when you fancy that the slippery mouthful is 
successfully disposed of, all on a sudden the eel 
retrogrades upwards from its dismal sepulchre, strug- 
gling violently to escape. The cormorant swallows 
it again ; and up again it comes, and shows its tail 
a foot or more out of its destroyer's mouth. At 
length, worn out with ineffectual writhings and 
slidings, the eel is gulped down into the cormorant s 
stomach for the last time, there to meet its dreaded 
and inevitable fate. This gormandising exhibition 
was witnessed here by several individuals, both 
ladies and gentlemen, on Nov. 26. 1832, through an 
excellent eight-and-twenty-guinea telescope ; the 
cormorant being, at that time, not more than a 
hundred yards distant from the observers. I was of 
the party. 
When I visited Flamborough Head in the first 
week in June, I was disappointed in not seeing the 
cormorant there; but I was informed in Bridlington 
Quay, that this bird was not to be found nearer than 
the rocks at Buckton ; and that it had eggs very late 
in the season. In consequence of this information, 
I piade a second expedition to the sea coast, and ar- 
rived at Bridlington Quay on July M. 1834. 
About three quarters of a mile from the sea, be- 
twixt Flamborough Head and Filey Bay, stands the 
once hospitable mansion of Buckton Hall, I say 
hospitable^ because its carved ornaments in stone, 
its stately appearance, and the excellent manner in 
which its out-buildings have been constructed^ 
plainly indicate that mirth and revelry must onc^ 
