with green reflections: the shoulders, scapulars, and wing-coverts, are of a bronze brown, tinged and glossed with green, and each feather is bordered with shining blueish black; the secondary quills are nearly of the same colour; the coverts and the primaries are dusky. The tail consists of fourteen stiff husky feathers, which look as if they were discoloured by being dipped in mud or dirty kennel-water: the legs are thick, strong, black, and coarse, about two inches and a half long, and the outer toe is more than four in length. The cormorant is found in every climate. In Greenland, where it is said they remain throughout the year, the jugular pouch is made use of by the natives, as a bladder to float their fishing-darts, after they are thrown; their skins, which are tough, are used for garments, and their flesh for food; “but the eggs are too fetid to be eaten even by the Greenlanders.” * * * * * These birds usually assemble in flocks on the summits and inaccessible parts of the rocks which overhang or are surrounded by the sea, upon which the female makes her nest of the withered sea-tang, weeds, sticks, and grasses, which are cast on shore by the waves: she lays four or more greenish-white eggs, of the size of those of a goose, but of a longer shape. There are writers who assert that, in some parts of the world, they build their nests on trees, like the rook and the heron; other authors, stricken with the singular conformation of the feet and serrated claws, have ascribed properties to them which they do not possess, and believe that they hold their prey in one foot, while with the other they push forward to the shore, or carry it thither, in the same manner, on the wing; but this seems mere conjecture, for the feet of this tribe are not fitted for any such purpose; they are, like those of all the expert divers, placed far behind; and while, by the position of these, and the powerful strokes from their broad webs, the bird is enabled to pursue and overtake its slippery prey, the hooked, sharp-edged beak is the only fit instrument both to catch and to secure it; and there is no need to use the awkward expedient of removing it afterwards to the foot. At sea, or on the inland lakes, they make terrible havoc. From the greatest height they drop down upon the object of pursuit, dive after it with the rapidity of a dart, and, with an almost unerring certainty, seize the victim; then emerging with the fish across the bill, with a kind of twirl, throw it up into the air, and, dexterously catching it head foremost, swallow it whole.