reater Cormorant {PhaUuroeorax Carbo).— The bird In front is in ftill plnmage, that behind in its Spring dress.
The cormorant belongs to the natural order of the jPelicanidce of Linnasus, and the species have the char- acteristic habit of watching on high cliffs, and, on per- ceiving a fish in the water, of darting down like an arrow and seizing its prey. The ** greater cormo- rant," however, more fluently shoots along in a line nearly close to the surface of Uie water, or, sitting on the wave, dives after the prey. It is trained to fish for man's use in China. It is common on the coasts of Syria and Palestine ; Rauwolff saw numbers of them along the sea-washed crags of Acre, which he mistook for sea-eagles. The cormorant is a widely-difftised genus, and is found in almost eveiy country in the world. (See the Penny Cyclopadiciy s. v. Pelicanidas.) The large kind weighs about seven pounds, and is near- ly of the same size as the goose ; it lives upon fish, and has a long, straight, and compressed bill, with the upper mandible hooked at the point, to confine the prey with the greater security ; its head and neck are of a sooty blackness, more resembling in figure those of the goose than of the gull. Its disthiguishing character, however, consists in its toes being united by mem- branes, and by tiie middle toe being notched like a saw, to assist it in holding its fishy prey. On the approach of winter these birds are seen dispersed along the sea- shore, and ascending the mouths of rivers ; they are remarkably voracious, and have such a quick diges- tion that the appetite appears insatiable. They build their nests on the hig^hest parts of the cliffs that over- hang the sea ; the female usually lays three or four eggs about the size of those of a goose, and of a pale green color. See Bibd.
Com. There are several words thus translated in the English version of the Scriptures, in which it is used in the proper sense of grxxm of any kind, and never in the American, application of maize or " In- dian com" (Zea mayt of Linn.), which it is generally thought was anciently unknown. In 1817, Parmen- tier {liouvectu Dictiotmaire d'Hist, NaturtUe^ vol. xviii), founding on the silence of Yarro, Columella, Pliny, and the other agricultural and botanical writers of classical «ntiquity, concluded that maize was un- known till the discovery of America ; and in 1834 Meyer asserted that " nothing In botanical geography is more certain than the New-World derivation of maize" (quoted by Duchartre in Orbigny's Diet, d'ffitt, Naiur.). But since then, in the magnificent monograph (Hut. NatureUe du Mais, 1886), M. Bona- fous, the director of the Royal Garden of Agriculture at Turin, has shown that it is figured in a Cliinese bo- tanical work as old as the middle of the sixteenth cen- tury— a time when the discoveries of Columbus could scarcely have penetrated to the Celestial Empire ; and, what is more conclusive, in 1819 M. Rifiaud discovered under the head of a mummy at Thebes not only grains, but leaves of Indian com. Nor is it at all impossible that the ^cta of Homer and Theophrastus may include the plant in question. The wide diffusion of this com through the Indian archipelago, and on the Indian continent itself, is in favor of the hypothesis which claims it as a native of the Old World ; and if it was known to the Egyptians, nothing could be more natu- ral than its early introduction into Palestine. — Fair- baira, s. v. See Cereals.
1. The word 1^*1, dagan' (from its mcrease), which is rendered "grain," " com," and sometimes " wheat" in the Auth.Yer8., is the most general of the Hebrew terms representing "com," and is more comprehen- sive than any word in our language, seeing that it probably includes not only all the proper cereals, but also various kinds of pulse and seeds of plants, which we never comprehend under the name ix. " com," or even of "grain." It may therefore be taken to rep- resent all the commodities which we describe by the different words com, grain, seeds, pease, beans. Among other places in which this word occu^, see
CORN
516
CORNELIUS
Gen. xxvli, 2^-97; Num. xviil, 27; Dent. xxviH, 61; Lun. ii, 12, etc. See Grain.
2. There is another word, "l?, bar Q, e. wmnowed)^ which denotes any kind of cleansed com, that is, com purified from the chaff and fit for use (Gen. xli, 85- 49 ; Prov. xi, 26 ; Jer. iv, 11 ; Joel ii, 24). The same word is more rarely used to describe com in a growing state (Psa. Ixv, 18). It elsewhere signifies the open ** fields" or country. See Laitd.
8. The word "ID^, 9he'ber (brcken, I e. grist), which is sometimes rendered com, denotes in a general sense ** provisions" or " victuals," and by consequence **com," as the principal article in all provisions (Gen. xUi, 1, 2, 20; Exod. viii, 6; Neh. x, 82, etc.). See Victuals.
4. The Greek oiroc corresponds to the first two of the above Hebrew words, for which it often stands in the Sept. QdAtJL iii, 12; Luke iu, 17; John xii, 24; Acts vii, 12, etc.). See Eab (of corn).