power and evil, which may well have struck Milton, as it must, I think, anyone who is appreciative and either not an ornithologist or who, if he is one, will suppress for the time being his special scientific knowledge and se laisser prendre aux choses, as did the less (falsely) critical portion of Moliere's audiences.
For, whatever the cormorant may look, he is in reality—except from the fish's point of view, which is, no doubt, a strong one—both a very innocent and, as I have said, a very amiable bird. He shines particularly in scenes of quiet domestic happiness—in the home circle both giving and receiving affection—and it is in this light that the following pictures will for the most part reveal him. I must premise that they all refer to that smaller and handsomer species of our two cormorants adorned with a crest, and whose plumage is all of a deep glossy, glancing green, called the shag. If I speak of him sometimes by his family name, it is because he has a clear right to it, and also because it has a more pleasing sound than the one which distinguishes him specifically. The habits of the two birds are almost the same, if not quite identical. They fish together in the sea, stand together on the rocks, and in the earlier stages of its plumage the more ornate one closely resembles the other in its permanent dress. One might think that they were not merely the co-descendants of a common and now extinct ancestor, but the modified form and its actual living progenitor. But I am aware of the arguments which could be used against such a conclusion.
I will now give my observations as taken down
