At Home with Wild Nature 



It will swallow whole the body of a dead rat, or that of 

 a live bird as large as a redshank ; drown and tear the 

 inside out of a sickly puffin, or make a meal off a dead 

 lamb ; rob a neighbouring gull, temporarily absent from 

 the nest, of her eggs, or gorge to repletion upon the 

 putrefying body of a dead whale with equal relish. 



The lesser black-backed gull and the herring gull are 

 equally rapacious and omnivorous, and whenever either 

 of them is eclipsed by the accomplishments of the great 

 black back, it is, I fear, only due to the restraining 

 influences of smaller size and strength. They are both 

 inveterate egg thieves and will snatch up and devour 

 any young bird that may have the ill-luck to come 

 within reach. I once watched a member of the latter 

 species seize and swallow alive a half-grown lapwing. 



Mrs. Jessie Saxby, who comes of a famous family of 

 Shetland naturalists, and has studied bird life in that 

 part of the country nearly all her days, declares that 

 seagulls have changed their habits during the last two 

 or three decades. Instead of going out to sea in search 

 of their natural food they eat turnips in the winter, 

 cranberries when they are ripe, corn when they can get 

 it, hawk moths in the evening, and hang round fish- 

 cleaning 1 stations for offal all day long, and this I am in 

 a position to confirm from personal experience. 



Perhaps the most picturesque robbers of the air to 

 be found in our country are the skuas. The great skua, 

 or " bonxie," is a large, powerfully built bird, 

 measuring nearly two feet in length and weighing more 

 than the raven. It is a summer visitor to the Shet- 



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