■' At Breakfast, Dinner, Tea, Supper. 1 9 



way we shall soon have to change their name from 

 Sea to Land Gnlls. 



A very strange thing about the feeding habits ot 

 Lesser Black-backed Gulls is that although the birds 

 will seize and swallow a live young Eider Duck on 

 land whenever they get the chance, a dead adult 

 Eider may lie for days together quite untouched 

 on a small island inhabited b}^ thousands of hungry 

 Lesser Black Backs. 



The question at once occurs, " But perhaps they 

 do not like the flesh of tough old Eiders ? " That is 

 not the explanation, however, for directly the body of 

 the dead bird is thrown into the sea there is a fierce 

 scramble for a taste of it, and I have never met any- 

 one who could explain why it was not touched whilst 

 lying on land. 



Birds are structurally adapted in a marvellous 

 deo-ree for their various methods of feedins^. Take 

 their bills, for instance. The long, nerve-crowded one 

 of the Snipe has been specially developed in order 

 that it might be thrust deep into the soft mud of the 

 swamp and telegraph to the brain of its owner the 

 presence of some wriggling worm, the slightest move- 

 ment of which it is capable of at once detecting ; and 

 the short, curved one of the Falcon, so that it may 

 swiftly and easily rend its prey. The short, conical 

 equipment of the Finches facilitates the husking and 

 crushing of grain, and the sj^ear-like one of Herons 

 the transfixing of slippery fishes ; the broad, fiat 

 bills of ducks the sifting of mud, and the narrow 



