Sir George Staunton, in his account of his Embassy to China, describes the place where the _Leu-tze_, or famed fishing-bird of China, is bred and instructed in the art and practice of supplying his owner with fish in great abundance. The bird, a Cormorant, is figured in Sir George's work, with two Chinese fishermen carrying their light boat, around the gunnel of which their Cormorants are perched by a pole resting on their shoulders between them. On a large lake are thousands of small boats and rafts built entirely for this species of fishery. On each boat or raft are ten or a dozen birds, which, on a signal from the owner, plunge into the water; and it is astonishing to see the enormous size of fish with which they return grasped between their bills. They appeared to be so well trained that it did not require either ring or cord about their throats to prevent them from swallowing any portion of their prey except what the master was pleased to return to them for encouragement and food. The boat used by these fishermen is remarkably light, and is often carried to the lake, together with the fishing-birds, by the men who are there to be supported by it. Belon gives an amusing account of the chase of this bird during calms, especially in the neighbourhood of Venice: the hunt is carried on in very light boats, each of which being rowed by five or six men, darts along the sea like the bolt from an arbalest, till the poor Cormorant, who is shot at with bows as soon as he puts his head above water, and cannot take flight after diving to suffocation, is taken quite tired out by his pursuers. Cormorant fishing has occasionally been reintroduced upon our rivers. In 1848 there were brought from Holland four tame Cormorants, which had been trained to the Chinese mode of fishing. Upon one occasion they fished three miles on a river, and caught a pannier-full of trout and eels. A ring placed round their necks to prevent them from swallowing large fish, but which leaves them at liberty to gulp down anything not exceeding the size of a gudgeon. The birds on these occasions are put into such parts of the river as are known to be favourite haunts of fish; and their activity under water in pursuit of fish can be compared to nothing so appropriate as a swallow darting after a fly. Blumenbach tells us the Cormorant occasionally increases in a few years to many thousands on coasts where it was previously unknown. It varies much both in size and colour. The late Joshua Brookes, the surgeon, possessed a Cormorant, which he presented to the Zoological Society. The Cormorant has a small sabre-shaped bone at the back of its vertex; which bone may serve as a lever in throwing back the head, when the animal tosses the fishes into the air and catches them in its open mouth. The same motion is, however, performed by some piscivorous birds, which are not provided with this particular bone.