Something about Sea Birds. 25 



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ject ; but it seems to me to deserve consideration in relation 

 to the causes, whatever they may be, of preternatural elonga- 

 tion. If it be one of the offices of the lower incisor to keep 

 the upper ones cut down, by collision, to their proper length, 

 and this by attrition on their inward face, the elongation and 

 curvature of the upper incisors across the lower incisors' line 

 of action (which is the case when they lengthen and curve into 

 the mouth) is the more remarkable, and gains one step in 

 tracing the original cause, by referring such an elongation of 

 the upper incisors to the incompetence of the lower incisors 

 to prevent it by their due abrasion, either from their absence, 

 shortness, weakness, or divergence. 



I may here introduce, from a newspaper, a paragraph on 

 this subject, which I have long possessed. 



A rabbit was killed, on the 31st of January, at Curcey, 

 Cornwall, which, instead of the two lower front teeth, had two 

 ivory tusks, in the shape of those of a wild boar, that mea- 

 sured, previous to being taken out of the jaw, an inch and a 

 half in length. {Morning Herald, Feb. 14. 1823.) — J. D. 



Art. IV. Something about Sea Birds. By Rusticus. 



Sir, 

 On a fine morning, towards the end of May, three of us 

 mounted the (Rocket) Portsmouth coach; double-barrelled 

 patent percussions having been previously duly prepared, and 

 a suitable supply of copper caps, powder and shot, and the 

 et ceteras of bird-stuffing laid in ; and the close of day found 

 us at Newport, in the centre of the Isle of Wight. The 

 next morning we reached Freshwater, or Freshwater Gate, 

 as the natives term it, to breakfast, experiencing, together 

 with ravenous appetites, a most sanguine and sanguinary 

 feeling against all manner of sea fowl and ornithological 

 rarities: we, however, soon learned that we must reserve 

 our ardour until the following morning, for that the birds 

 went to seaward at sunrise, and did not return until it was 

 too dark at night to get any shooting ; so we wandered 

 about the neighbourhood all day, and shot a stray summer 

 snipe or two, and two or three old crows. As for myself, 

 being a little bit of an insect-hunter, I was well enough 

 amused in netting butterflies; a very beautiful one, called 

 Cinxitf, being abundant here : there were also great quantities 

 of a yellow moth, with black spots, which is called the dew 

 moth (Lithosia irrorea). In the way of botany, too, we had 



