Bible animals

by J. G. Wood

Mr. Fortune gives a somewhat similar account of the feeding of tame Cormorants in China. The birds preferred eels to all other food, and, in spite of the difficulty in swallowing the slippery and active creature, would not touch another fish as long as an eel was left. The bird is so completely at home in the water that it does not need, like the heron and other aquatic birds, to bring its prey ashore in order to swallow it, but can eat fish in the water as well as catch them. It always seizes the fish crosswise, and is therefore obliged to turn it before it can swallow the prey with the head downwards. Sometimes it contrives to turn the fish while still under water, but, if it should fail in so doing, it brings its prey to the surface, and shifts it about in its bill, making a series of little snatches at it until the head is in the right direction. When it seizes a very large fish, the bird shakes its prey just as a dog shakes a rat, and so disables it. It is said to eat its own weight of fish in a single day.

Sometimes, when it has been very successful or exceptionally hungry, it loads itself with food to such an extent that it becomes almost insensible during the process of digestion, and, although naturally a keen-eyed and wary bird, allows itself to be captured by hand.

The nest of the Cormorant is always upon a rocky ledge, and generally on a spot which is inaccessible except by practised climbers furnished with ropes, poles, hooks, and other appurtenances. Mr. Waterton mentions that when he descended the Raincliff, a precipice some four hundred feet in height, he saw numbers of the nests and eggs, but could not get at them except by swinging himself boldly off the face of the cliff, so as to be brought by the return swing into the recesses chosen by the birds.

The nests are mostly placed in close proximity to each other, and are made of sticks and seaweeds, and, as is usual with such nests, are very inartificially constructed. The eggs are of a greenish white on the outside, and green on the inside. When found in the nest, they are covered with a sort of chalky crust, so that the true colour is not perceptible until the crust is scraped off. Two to four eggs are generally laid in, or rather on, each nest. As may be imagined from the character of the birds' food, the odour of the nesting-place is most horrible.

Sometimes, when rocks cannot be found, the Cormorant is obliged to select other spots for its nest. It is mentioned in the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society," that upon an island in the midst of a large lake there were a number of Scotch fir-trees, upon the branches of which were about eighty nests of the Cormorant.

The flesh of the Cormorant is very seldom eaten, as it has a fishy flavour which is far from agreeable. To eat an old Cormorant is indeed almost impossible, but the young birds may be rendered edible by taking them as soon as killed, skinning them, removing the whole of the interior, wrapping them in cloths, and burying them for some time in the ground.

From the account of this bird, the reader will see that it may well be the Shâlâk of the Old Testament. Owing to its size and its peculiar habits, it is a very conspicuous bird, and therefore likely to be selected by name by the ancient lawgiver. And although its flesh is not very agreeable, it can be eaten; and, as has been shown, can be rendered tolerably palatable by a very simple process. The flesh of the Solan goose is deprived in a similar manner of its naturally rank and fishy flavour.

THE PELICAN.

The Pelican of the wilderness—Attitudes of the bird—Its love of solitude—Derivation of the Hebrew word—Fantastic interpretation—Mode of feeding the young—Fables regarding the Pelican—Breeding-places of the bird—The object of its wide wings and large pouch—Colour of the Pelican.

On page [490] it has been mentioned that in two passages of Scripture, the word which is translated in the Authorized Version as Cormorant, ought to have been rendered as Pelican. These, however, are not the first passages in which we meet with the word kaath. The name occurs in the two parallel passages of Lev. xi. and Deut. xiv. among the list of birds which are proscribed as food. Passing over them, we next come to Ps. cii. 6. In this passage, the sacred writer is lamenting his misery: "By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin.