CLASS II. AVES: OllDEE 8. NATATORES. 
337 
TiiH BLACK COfiMOKANT. 
and voracious fisher. In some countries, as in China, and formerly in England, the skill of the 
cormorant in fishing was turned to profit ; for by buckling a ring about the lower part of the 
neck, to prevent deglutition, and accustoming it to return with its acquisitions in the bill to its 
master, it was made a useful and domestic fisher. On the rivers of China, cormorants, though 
of a different but very similar species, P. Sinenis^ thus ari'anged, are perched on the prows of boats, 
and at a signal made by striking the Avatcr with an oar, they instantly plunge, and soon emerge 
with a fish, which is taken from them ; and this toil continued till its master is satisfied, he looses 
the collar, and finishes the day by allowing it to fish for itself. But it is only hunger which gives 
activity to the cormorant ; when glutted with its meal, which is soon acquired, it relaxes into its 
native indolence, and dozes away the greatest part of its time in gluttonous inebriety, perched in 
solitude on naked and insulated or inaccessible rocks, to which it prudently retires for greater 
safety from the intrusion of enemies. 
Another common species is the Shag or Green- Cormorant, F, graculus ; it is twenty-seven 
inches long ; chiefly frequents the sea, and has been caught in a crab-pot one hundred and twenty 
feet below the surface of the water. Its habits and distribution are similar to those of the 
Black Cormorant. 
The following species are noted in the Catalogue of the Smithsonian Institution : Pallas's 
Cormorant, Graculus jjerspicillatus : Double-crested Cormorant, G.dilophus : Florida Cor- 
morant, G. Floridanus : Mexican Cormorant, G. Mexicanus : Brandt's Cormorant, G. pen- 
icillatus ; Violet-Green Cormorant, G. violaceus : the Tufted Cormorant, G. Cincinnatus ; 
all found on some parts of the coasts of North America. 
Genus SULA : Sula. — This includes the Gannets, which resemble the cormorants in their form 
and their voracity. The Common Gannet, S. alba — called the Channel-Goose and also Soland 
or Solan-Goose, a corruption of Solent — the name of the narrow sea between the Isle of Wight 
and the main-land of England, where this species is common — rarely swims much, and is quite in- 
capable of diving. These birds take the fishes of which their prey consists, by flying over the sur- 
VoL. IL— 43. 
