Richard J. King is Lecturer in Literature of the Sea at Williams–Mystic, the Maritime Studies Program of Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts) and Mystic Seaport (Mystic, Connecticut). He holds a doctorate from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He completed his master’s thesis, an interdisciplinary study of cormorants, in 2003 at Wesleyan University. He has since published several articles on the birds and is working on a book titled Curiosity and the Cormorant. King writes a column about animals in maritime history for Sea History.