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Louis de Cormontaingne

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LOUIS DE CORMONTAINGNE ( c. 1697-1752), French military engineer, was born at Strassburg. He was present as a volunteer at the sieges of Freiburg and Landau in the later years of the War of the Spanish Succession, and in 1715 he entered the engineers. After being stationed for some years at Strassburg he became captain, and was put in charge (at first in a subordinate capacity, and subsequently as chief engineer) of the new works, Forts Moselle and Bellecroix, at Metz, which he built according to his own system of fortification. He was present at the siege of Philipsburg in 1733, and as a lieutenant-colonel took part in most of the sieges in the Low Countries during the War of the Austrian Succession. He attained the rank of brigadier and finally that of marechal de camp, and was employed in fortification work until his death. His Architecture militaire, written in 1714, was long kept secret by order of the authorities, but, an unauthorized edition having appeared at the Hague in 1741, he himself prepared another version called Premier memoire sur la fortification, which from 1741 onwards was followed by others. His ideas are closely modelled on those of Vauban (q.v.), and in his lifetime he was not considered the equal of such engineers as d'Asfeld and Filley. It was not until twenty years after his death that his system became widely known. Fourcroy de Rainecourt, then chief of engineers, searching the archives for valuable matter, chose the numerous memoirs of Cormontaingne for publication amongst engineer officers in 1776. Even then they only circulated privately, and it was not until the engineer Bousmard published Cormontaingne's Memorial de l'attaque des places (Berlin, 1803) that Fourcroy, and after him General La Fitte de Clave, actually gave to the general public the Ouvres posthumes de Cormontaingne (Paris, 1806-1809).

His system of fortification was not marked by any great originality of thought, which indeed could not be expected of a member of the corps du genie, the characteristics of which were a close caste spirit and an unquestioning reverence for the authority of Vauban. Forts Moselle and Bellecroix are still in existence.

See Von Brese-Winiari, Ober Entstehen etc. der neueren Befestigungsmethode (Berlin, 1844); Prevost du Vernois, De lu, fortification depuis Vauban (Paris, 1861); Cosseron de Villenoisy, Essai historique sur la fortification (Paris, 1869).

(from the Lat. corvus marinus, 1 through the Fr., in some patois of which it is still "cor marin"; in certain Ital. dialects are the forms "corvo marin" or "corvo marino"), a large sea-fowl belonging to the genus Phalacrocorax 2 ( Carbo, Halieus and Graculus of some ornithologists), and that group of the Linnaean order Anseres, now partly generally recognized by Illiger's term Steganopodes, of which it with its allies forms a family Phalacrocoracidae. The cormorant ( P. carbo ) frequents almost all the sea-coast of Europe, and breeds in societies at various stations, most generally on steep cliffs, but occasionally on rocky islands as well as on trees. The nest consists of a large mass of sea-weed, and, with the ground immediately surrounding it, generally looks as though bespattered with whitewash, from the excrement of the bird, which lives entirely on fish. The eggs, from four to six in number, are small, and have a thick, soft, calcareous shell, bluishwhite when first laid, but soon becoming discoloured. The young are hatched blind, and covered with an inky-black skin. They remain for some time in the squab-condition, and are then highly esteemed for food by the northern islanders, their flesh being said to taste as well as a roasted hare's. Their first plumage is of a sombre brownish-black above, and more or less white beneath. They take two or three years to assume the fully adult 1 Some authors, following Caius, derive the word from corvus vorans and spell it corvorant, but doubtless wrongly.

So spelt since the days of Gesner; but possibly Phalarocorax would be more correct.

dress, which is deep black, glossed above with bronze, and varied in the breeding-season with white on the cheeks and flanks, besides being adorned by filamentary feathers on the head, and further set off by a bright yellow gape. The old cormorant looks nearly as big as a goose, but is really much smaller; its flesh is quite uneatable.

Taken when young from the nest, this bird is easily tamed and can be trained to fish for its keeper, as was of old time commonly done in England, where the master of the cormorants was one of the officers of the royal household. Nowadays the practice is nearly obsolete. When taken out to furnish sport, a strap is fastened round the bird's neck so as, without impeding its breath, to hinder it from swallowing its captures.' Arrived at the waterside, it is cast off. It at once dives and darts along the bottom as swiftly as an arrow in quest of its prey, rapidly scanning every hole or pool. A fish is generally seized within a few seconds of its being sighted, and as each is taken the bird rises to the surface with its capture in its bill. It does not take much longer to dispose of the prize in the dilatable skin of its throat so far as the strap will allow, and the pursuit is recommenced until the bird's gular pouch, capacious as it is, will hold no more. It then returns to its keeper, who has been anxiously watching and encouraging its movements, and a little manipulation of its neck effects the delivery of the booty. It may then be let loose again, or, if considered to have done its work, it is fed and restored to its perch. The activity the bird displays under water is almost incredible to those who have not seen its performances, and in a shallow river scarcely a fish escapes its keen eyes, and sudden turns, except by taking refuge under a stone or root, or in the mud that may be stirred up during the operation, and so avoiding observation (see Salvin and Freeman, Falconry, 1859).

Nearly allied to the cormorant, and having much the same habits, is the shag, or green cormorant of some writers (P. graculus). The shag (which name in many parts of the world is used in a generic sense) is, however, about one-fourth smaller in linear dimensions, is much more glossy in plumage, and its nuptial embellishment is a nodding plume instead of the white patches of the cormorant. The easiest diagnostic on examination will be found to be the number of tail-feathers, which in the former are fourteen and in the shag twelve. The latter, too, is more marine in the localities it frequents, scarcely ever entering fresh or indeed inland waters.

In the south of Europe a much smaller species (P. pygmaeus) is found. This is almost entirely a fresh-water bird, and is not uncommon on the lower Danube. Other species, to the number perhaps of thirty or more, have been discriminated from other parts of the world, but all have a great general similarity to one another. New Zealand and the west coast of northern America are particularly rich in birds of this genus, and the species found there are the most beautifully decorated of any. All, however, are remarkable for their curiously-formed feet, the four toes of each being connected by a web, for their long stiff tails, and for the absence, in the adult, of any exterior nostrils. When gorged, or when the state of the tide precludes fishing, they are fond of sitting on an elevated perch, often with extended wings, and in this attitude they will remain motionless for a considerable time, as though hanging themselves out to dry. It was perhaps this peculiarity that struck the observation of Milton, and prompted his well-known similitude of Satan to a cormorant ( Parad. Lost, iv. 194); but when not thus behaving they themselves provoke the more homely comparison of a row of black bottles. Their voracity is proverbial. (A. N.)