THE POLICE OF NATURE. 
219 
liberty. But different people have different notions with 
regard to starvation. It is one of those things that is far 
less painful to talk about than experience. For instance, 
the following conversation is related of one of the princesses 
in George III.'s time, when there was a great talk of famine 
and starvation. Do you believe, governess dear," said the 
princess, that it is possible any one could starve to death?" 
"O yes," replied the governess. "Well, I really can't 
believe it," said the princess ; " for, do you know, governess, 
that I could sooner eat bread an cheese than die of starva- 
tion." This, it appears, was the princess's impression upon 
the subject. But certain it is, necessity knows no law ; and 
had misfortune placed her highness with Mr. Waterton in the 
wilds of South America, or with the British officer in famished 
Kars, it is ten thousand to one but she would have been as 
anxious for her share of the monkey or rat as any one else. 
But let us return to the barn owl, in order to refute the 
unjust charges brought against the tribe. You must under- 
stand, they now and then disgorge, or vomit up, an oval ball 
or pellet, which is composed of the fur and bones of mice, 
that remain in the crop or stomach after the flesh and dis- 
solvible particles have been disposed of in the ordinary 
process of digestion ; but the fur and bones being difficult 
of digestion, nature has provided their crop or stomach with 
the means of working and compressing these substances into 
a ball, and then ejecting it. Of these pellets the birds make 
their nests, wherein they lay and hatch their eggs. Mr. 
Waterton tells us that he has dissolved and examined these 
pellets, and could never find either feathers or birds' bones 
in any of them. Now, as feathers are equally as hard of 
digestion as the fur of mice, and birds' bones no easier of 
digestion than the bones of mice, the only just conclusions 
v/e can arrive at are, that the barn owl, in a state of nature, 
never eats birds of any kind. Consequently the charges 
against it are unfounded ; and the persecutions it has suf- 
fered have been most barbarous and unjust. But, on the 
other hand, Mr. Waterton says you can find the skeletons of 
several mice in each pellet ; and that in one of his owls' 
roosts he gathered up at one time a bushel measure nearly 
full of these pellets, that had been disgorged within the last 
few months. 
