THE BIRDS. 93 



The establishment of what will before long become fine 

 arboretums the Hesketh Park, and the Churchtown Botanic 

 Gardens will do much for our local feathered friends. 

 There, at least, they will be safe; a good effort of one kind 

 undesignedly promoting advantages of another and not less 

 desirable order. The maritime birds, fortunately, are not 

 exposed to the same kind of interference as those living on 

 land. The pearly-bosomed sea-gulls have it all their own 

 way ; and, here, it may be mentioned that one of the most 

 interesting spectacles to be witnessed in Southport, is the 

 daily feeding of these pretty, though harsh-voiced, birds at 

 the end of the Pier. That, while the land-birds are foremost 

 among nature's sanitary police, in regard to insects, c., the 

 sea-gulls are the ocean-scavengers, hardly needs the saying. 

 The practice at Southport is to feed the gulls with the refuse 

 of the market fish. Every day at noon, except upon Sundays, 

 it is thrown upon the water, piece after piece, from the lower 

 portion of the stage. The gulls are already assembled they 

 know it is twelve o'clock ; as an example of memory in birds, 

 a better and more interesting proof cannot be found as 

 regularly as the hour comes, if the day be bright, flocks of 

 them may be distinguished sailing up from a league distance, 

 and for ten or fifteen minutes, the clamour, and then the 

 activity, is an event never to be forgotten. 



For the enjoyment to the full, of the song of the skylark, 

 it is best, perhaps, to go to Crossens, and beyond ; where the 

 fields and the heavens, at times, are quite saturated with the 

 simple music. A capital collection of specimens of the 

 Southport birds, formed by Mr. George Davis, is contained in 

 the Museum of the Churchtown Gardens. 



