very fish themselves, and seems as much at home beneath the surface of the water as in the air. The Cormorant when taken young is easily tamed, and from the earliest recorded times it has been trained to capture fish for its owner. To this day the Chinese and Japanese train Cormorants for this purpose. In England this sport was once a regal pleasure, the Master of the Cormorants finding a place in the Royal household. According to Professor Newton, the sport still lingers amongst a few. Willughby asserts that the trained Cormorant was carried hooded until cast off, but nowadays its bearer protects his eyes from a stroke from the bird’s beak, with a wire mask. A strap or a ring is fastened round the Cormorant’s neck, to prevent it swallowing its captures, just as we muzzle a ferret to prevent it lying up. All who have witnessed this novel way of fishing testify to the bird’s marvellous skill in catching fish after fish, until the gular pouch will hold no more, when the Cormorant is taken, and the fish removed. The food of this bird is composed almost entirely of fish. In winter Cormorants become even more gregarious, often associating in large flocks which wander far in quest of food. This bird is not so completely pelagic in its habits as the Auks, the Divers, and the Grebes. It generally retires to the caves and shelves of the cliffs to sleep, whilst stormy weather will drive it shorewards soon, where it will sit and mope on the rocks, or shelter in the quiet creeks, or under the lee of cliffs, as if waiting for the sea to subside, and allow of its labours being renewed.