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The Gaelic Names oj Birds. 83
1 1 is hard to say what they may rise to yet, as there are only Go
known specimens in tlie workl, 41 of which are in Britain. Of
course the Gg^ii are liable to destruction, whilst there is no possi-
bility of any more ever being added to the list.
George Buchanan, in his '' History of Scotland," published in
1580, in his account of the Isle of Suilkyr, says:— " In this island
also there is a rare kind of bird, unknown in other parts, called
Ooli:a. It is little less than a goose. She comes every year
thither, and there hatches and feeds her young till they can shift
for themselves. About that time, her feathers fall off of their
own accord, and so leaves her naked, then she betakes herself to
the sea again, and is never seen more till the next spring. Tliis
also is singular in them, that their feathers have no quills or stalks,
Ijut do cover their bodies with a gentle down, wherein there is no
hardness at all."
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Family IV. —Peleanidce.
COJIMON CORMORANT.
Latin Phalacrocora.v carbo. Gaelic Sgarbh,S(jarbh-buill, Syarbha-bhothain,
Sgarbh-an-uchcl ghil, Ballaire-bothain, Ballaireboan,
Sgaireag (Young). Welsh Mulfran, Morfran.
This terrible gluttor., the most voracious of all our birds,
though certainly no great ftivourite with the Highlanders, has
escaped in Gaelic lore the extremely bad character w'hich it bears
in English, caused no doubt, to a great extent, by some of the
early English poets choosing this bird for an example of all that
was bad. INIilton even goes the length, in " Paradise Lost," of
making Satan assume the form of this bird, before he did that of
the serpent, and entering the Garden of Eden :
" Thence up he flew, and on the Tree of Life,
The middle tree, and highest there that grew,
Sat like a Cormorant."
As Pennant puts it :— " To survey undelighted the beauties of
Paradise : and sit devising death on the Tree of Life." The only
evil habit which I find in our Gaelic lore attributed to the cormorant
is that its young, along with the jackdaw's, are accused,
in the old proverb, of tiying to pass themselves off" as something
better than what they really are by imitating tlie voices of better
birds :— " Guth na cubhaig am bial na cathaig, 's guth na faoileig
am bial na sgaireig"— the cuckoo's voice in the jackdaw's mouth,
and the sea-gull's voice in the young scart's. The cormorant is an
extremely dirty bird about its nest, which smells abominably. Mr
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