THE SOUND OF MULL. 477 



with formidable tiers of teeth, looks not unlike a vermin-trap 

 a very efficient one, too, to its owner ! When grounded 

 alive, the toad-fish loses strength gradually, until at last the 

 only sign of life is a languid flap of the flippers at long inter- 

 vals. It is very destructive to other fish, and so ravenous 

 that a full-grown cormorant was taken out of the stomach of 

 one entangled in the stake-nets of Tongue. The term cor- 

 morant is most appropriately applied to the greedy ; for not 

 only does that bird consume its own weight of fish per diem, 

 but the large mouthful it can bolt seems like a feat of magic. 

 In this case the biter was bit, and the stake-netters were in 

 excellent humour with the sea-monster for having played so 

 good a practical joke. Another curious instance of a fish 

 having swallowed a large bird was told me by Sanderson, the 

 bird-stuffer, Edinburgh. He says that the only Sclavonian 

 grebe received by him, except the one I sent in the winter of 

 1860, was taken out of the stomach of a cod ! 



Fish are certainly more voracious than either birds or 

 animals, and are also more apt to prey upon their own species. 

 I had ocular proof in the summer of 1859 that the fresh- 

 water eel is as great a cannibal as the pike. One of my 

 children set a line, baited with an earth-worm, in the burn 

 that runs past Scalastal, in Mull. A small eel took the bait, 

 and was itself swallowed, by a big one. Although untouched 

 by the hook, the large eel was pulled ashore before disgorging 

 its tiny neighbour. It was nearly as thick as a man's wrist, 

 and weighed five pounds. 



Carrion and grey crows not only search out and devour 

 vast numbers of eggs, but are able to destroy young birds of 

 considerable size. Even jackdaws sometimes feed their nest- 

 lings with very young game, but only in parched summers, 

 when the supply of slugs and worms fails. One very dry 

 season, I remember two nides of pheasants nearly all devoured 

 by a pair of daws. The pheasants, when hatched, were placed, 

 with their bantam foster-mothers, in coops under some large 



