THE HOME OF THE CORMORANT. 
265 
to take haggard cormorants for His Majesty’s disport in 
fishing, the yearly allowance of eighty-four pounds, to be 
paid on the four usual feasts of the year, during His 
Majesty’s pleasure, in such manner as John Wood and 
Robert Wood, or George Hutchinson, gentlemen, formerly 
received.”* 
Although Shakespeare has mentioned the cormorant in 
many of his Plays, he has nowhere alluded to the sport 
with trained birds ; and this is somewhat singular, inas¬ 
much as he has made frequent mention of the then popu¬ 
lar pastime of hawking, and he did not die until some 
years after James I. had made fishing with cormorants 
a fashionable amusement.*)* The sport has long since 
ceased to amuse royalty, and by English sportsmen is 
now almost abandoned.! 
To return to the sea, the true home of the cormorant; 
that sea 
“ Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege 
Of watery Neptune.” 
Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 1. 
“ Those who have never observed our boldest coasts,” 
says Oliver Goldsmith, “ have no idea of their tremendous 
* Sidney Bere, in Land and Water, April 20, 1867. 
f In “Chambers’s Journal” for 1859, will be found an interesting article upon 
the subject, entitled “ The King and his Cormorants.” 
J Mr. Salvin, to whom we have before referred, and Mr. E. C. Newcome, of 
Feltwell Hall, Norfolk, still keep and use trained cormorants ; as, through the 
kindness of the former, we have had pleasant opportunities of attesting. 
M M 
