AD VERSITY. 
IO9 
not a trace. These were in the fire which Prometheus 
stole from heaven, and for that theft the vultures are 
still pecking at his liver. But, howsoever pecked, he still 
lives and the fire is not put out. 
But to return to my first subject, I say that, among 
animals, death follows upon failure with merciful swiftness. 
But death is the extreme penalty of the law. Hard times 
are the scourge, which hangs always on the wall and often 
comes down heavily. I have seen some curious instances 
of the shifts to which birds are put when food fails and 
hunger presses. Near the city of Glasgow, one Sunday 
in October, I saw a crov/d of gulls at a great height in 
the sky, hawking insects. Some starlings joined them, 
but were not able for the exertion of soaring at that height 
and soon came down again. Now think what is implied 
in this strange spectacle. We are moved at Belisarius 
begging for an obolus, and shall we not be touched when 
great gulls turn themselves into swallows and try to catch 
the mayfly and the daddy longlegs ? Civilised gulls too, 
nurtured in the lap of luxury ! For ages their hardy 
ancestors roamed over the ocean, picking up what they 
could find, glad to follow the dolphin or the whale and 
profit by the panic which its presence caused among the 
