BIRDS AND THEIR DAILY BREAD. 605 



crocodile, and in return warned it against its enemies, which has been 

 laughed at as fabulous ; but, in the light of modern observations, there 

 is nothing incredible in it. 



Hunger sometimes causes birds to take to the most unaccustomed 

 foods. When sparrows gather around fresh horse-dung and turn it 

 over with evident relish, it is on account of the undecomposed oats it 

 contains ; but there are real coprophagists or dung-eaters among birds. 

 Some vultures, according to Brehm, live chiefly on human excrement, 

 and one of the handsomest gulls of the far North feeds largely on the 

 droppiugs of seals and walruses. 



There are aberrations of taste among birds as well as among men 

 and other animals, the exact origin of which can be definitely traced 

 out. Tame birds— geese, fowls, and doves, the last of which in par- 

 ticular are strict vegetarians — can, by the withdrawal of their accus- 

 tomed grain, be won over to the enjoyment of animal diet till they 

 prefer it, and may finally have their new taste so highly cultivated 

 that they will spurn vegetable food. These changes do not mean 

 much when they are compulsory ; but they become very significant 

 when they are wholly voluntary. Our common sparrow has within 

 a few years gained legal, scientific, and even political fame by reason 

 of its change of food-habit ; and, amid all the controversy that has 

 rased about its character, it is clear that it has become extreme- 

 ly ravenous and destructive to broods of young song-birds. Yet 

 the sparrow is originally an eater of animal food, living on larvae, 

 worms, and snails, from which the step is not so vei*y great to the de- 

 vouring of a little wee, helpless chick ; but the perversion of taste 

 which the New Zealand kea (JVester productus) has undergone is of a 

 different character. The nature of its home as well as its organization 

 made it clearly a vegetable feeder, and there was no apparent occasion 

 in its normal state for a bloodthirsty taste or a predatory inclination 

 to arise within it. With the introduction of sheep-raising in New 

 Zealand the bird's nature seems to have been changed. It learned to 

 feast upon the blood of the slaughtered animals, and, having once 

 tasted blood, it conceived such a relish for it that it was no longer able 

 to satisfy its appetite with the occasional slaughter of a sheep, but be- 

 gan itself to take the initiative by falling upon animals which were 

 suffering from slight wounds and opening the sores to make the blood 

 flow. From this it advanced till it learned to help on the accident 

 and make wounds for itself. 



Birds living naturally on flesh are sometimes turned, without any 

 stress of necessity, to become vegetarians. A considerable number of 

 insect-feeders in Southern Europe eat fruits, especially figs, with evi- 

 dent relish, and the habit abides with them not only there, but also in 

 other regions when they pass through them. I once became very in- 

 dignant in Corfu at seeing an old, lank fellow, with a fowling-piece 

 likewise old and lank, shooting the little singing-birds, among which 



