Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/203

Rh of the Cormorant. Jerdon states that these birds have the power of inflating the gullet to enable them "to swallow considerable sized fish," and their digestion is "very rapid," to which may be added that they have a healthy appetite. I imagine that, when the Government takes the Indian fisheries in hand, as it has done those at home, it will be found expedient to exterminate the Cormorants. I hope that day is far distant, however. A crowd of Cormorants after a great shoal of little fishes affords a most exciting spectacle. They hem the shoal in and drive it towards the shore, diving and coming up and diving again in breathless haste. All the white Egrets in the neighbourhood come down to share in the fun and run along the edge of the water, plucking out any shivering refugee that comes within reach. So there is black death behind and pale death in front, and the massacre must be terrible.

There are two other species of Cormorants, the Large and the Lesser, as Jerdon calls them, but they are not nearly so common. The Snake Bird (Plotus melanogaster), so called from its serpentine head and neck, is more familiar. At a distance, sitting on a low tree, with its wings held out to dry, it looks like a big Cormorant with the neck of a Heron fitted on to its shoulders; but at close quarters it is a very handsome bird. Its plumage is peculiar, the feathers on the shoulders especially being long and narrow, like the hackles of a cock. Each feather is black or dark brown, with a silvery border, or spotted with silvery white, and the effect is very beautiful. When the snake-bird is swimming it often lets the whole of its body sink under the surface, so that nothing is visible except the