Hai Collection, Middle Volume Radical: Bird (niǎo) Character: ci Kangxi Dictionary strokes: 21 Page 1497, Entry 04 Pronounced zi. The cormorant, a water bird. Piya (Piya): A bird resembling the osprey but black. Another name is yi. Erya (Erya), Explaining Birds: Ci and yi. Guo commentary: This is the cormorant. Li Shizhen stated: In rhyme books, both lu and zi mean black. This bird is deep black in color, hence the name. The name yi comes from the sound the bird makes when it calls itself. Another name is water crow. Another name is black ghost (wu gui). Kuizhou Travel Records (Kuizhou tujing): People in Kuizhou use cormorants to catch fish, calling them black ghosts. Du Fu, Sending Off Worries poem: Every household keeps black ghosts. Yang Fu, Records of Strange Things (Yiwu zhi): The cormorant can dive into deep water to catch and eat fish. It does not lay eggs, but conceives chicks in marshes and ponds. Once pregnant, it spits out the young; many have seven or eight, few have five or six, emerging consecutively like a thread of silk. Zhengzitong (Zhengzitong): The cormorant is colloquially called ci lao. People raise them and tie a cord around their throat, allowing only small fish to pass. Large fish cannot go down; the owners call the bird to retrieve the fish, then send it back out. Its beak is curved like a hook and its throat is as hot as boiling water, so fish rot as soon as they enter, making the taste unpleasant. Also pronounced zi. The meaning is the same.