Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/119

Rh erect. Thereupon the master, shortening in on that bird, lifts it aboard, forces its bill open with his left hand, which still holds the rest of the lines, squeezes out the fish with his right, and starts the creature off on a fresh foray, all this with such admirable dexterity and quickness that the eleven birds still bustling about have scarce time to get things into a tangle, and in another moment the whole team is again perfectly in hand.

"As for the cormorants, they are trained when quite young, being caught in winter with bird-lime on the coasts of the neighbouring Owari Gulf, at their first emigration southward from the summer haunts of the species on the northern seaboard of Japan. Once trained, they work well up to fifteen, often up to nineteen or twenty, years of age; and, though their keep in winter bears hardly on the masters, they are very precious and profitable hunters during the five months season, and well deserve the great care that is lavished upon them. From four to eight good-sized fish for example, is the fair result of a single excursion for one bird, which corresponds with an average of about one hundred and fifty fish per cormorant per hour, or four hundred and fifty for the three hours occupied in drifting down the whole course. Every bird in a flock has and knows its number; and one of the funniest things about them is the quick-witted jealousy with which they invariably insist, by all that cormorant language and pantomimic protest can do, on due observance of the recognized rights belonging to their individual numbers. No. 1. or 'Ichi', is the doyen of the corps, the senior in years as well as rank. His colleagues, according to their age, come after him in numerical order. Ichi is the last to be put into the water and the first to be taken out, the first to be fed, and the last to enter the baskets in which, when work is over, the birds are carried from the boats to their domicile. Ichi, when aboard, has the post of honour at the eyes of the boat. He is a solemn, grizzled old fellow, with a pompous, noli me tangere air that is almost worthy of a Lord Mayor. The rest have places after him, in succession of rank, alternately on either side of