CHAP, xii.] ACCOMMODATING APPETITE. 405 



again ! Open the basket, and turn him out into the 

 courtyard, and tell your father to come and talk to me 

 about it." 



A bird that is no fresh-water sailor, but can revel in 

 our gales as they blow hardest on their respectively 

 most exposed coast, easterly, sou' westerly, nor' wes- 

 terly, or north-easterly, will not suffer from the in- 

 clemencies of a nobleman's park, a lady's pleasure- 

 ground, a farmer's kitchen-garden, or a clergyman's 

 paddock with a gold and silver fish-pond at one corner. 

 Sweet are the uses of adversity. To one inured to 

 storms, every port is a paradise. Great, too, is the force 

 of philosophy. As to Aristippus, so to the Gull, all 

 sorts of fare, and lodging, and company, are convenient. 

 Fish falls short : never mind ; rats, mice, frogs, dead 

 sparrows, snails, worms, and beetles will do. Ani- 

 mal food is scarce for a time. " Well," he says, " I 

 will not be above the other fowls ; I will take my bread, 

 and a bit of cheese, if you can spare it, and my barley- 

 meal and water, and my boiled rice, and be thankful 

 too. Of even water I can bear a short allowance, though 

 in water I am in one of my elements. You remember 

 how John Hunter has preserved the stomach of an 

 ancestor of mine, who dined for some time on this sort 

 of diet. Why should I be more fastidious than my 

 forefathers ? Beach me the porringer, and see how I 

 will peck."* 



* " I have observed that the Black-headed Gull eats a great deal 

 of corn in the newly-sown fields ; and I now find that the lesser 

 Black-backed Gull does the same, as I shot one which had a handful 

 of corn (oats and barley) in its crop, mixed up with worms, grubs, 

 &c." St. John's Tour in Sutherland, vol. i., p. 224. Aldrovandi 

 says that in Liguria (the Riviera di Genoa) Gulls are (or were) very 

 destructive of olives. 



