ABSTRACT
THERE is another species called the cormorant or eel-crow. 1 These birds are jet-black apart from their breasts and bellies, which Nature has coloured grey, and she has also given them unmatched gluttony. They pursue fish, but are sluggish in flight and remain for a long time under water when they dive. Their beaks are toothed like harvesters’ sickles, so that they may keep a firm hold on slippery fish, especially eels, which they hunt and gulp down so greedily that they discharge them alive through their bowels as though along a drain-pipe. They have a most disagreeable habit of excreting on the bark and branches of the trees they inhabit, so that these become contaminated by the droppings and quickly wither. 2
