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Birds. 
prey, and bring whatever they capture to their owner's 
boat. Sometimes two Cormorants will unite their efforts 
to capture a large fish ; and if any of the birds neglect 
their business the man will slap on the water with a 
bamboo, as a schoolmaster does with his cane on the 
desk, to recall the idlers to a sense of their duty. This 
bird, although of the aquatic kind, is often seen, like the 
pelican, perched upon trees. Milton tells us that Satan 
On the tree of life, 
The middle tree, and highest there that grew, 
Sat like a Cormorant." 
In the year 1793, one of them was observed sitting on 
the vane of St. Martin's steeple, Ludgate Hill, London, 
and was shot there in the presence of a great number of 
people. 
THE SHAG, OR CRESTED CORMORANT, 
(Phalacrocorax graculus,) 
Is of a dark green, with a singular tuft on the front of 
the head in the spring, 
sea-coast. 
It breeds in rocky caves on the 
