44 
INTERNAL STRUCTURE. 
it is said, will at one repast, if hungry, devour as many fish 
as would suffice for half-a-dozen people ; and, like the Gulls 
above mentioned, will in confinement snap up rats and other 
small quadrupeds. The Gannet, another fishing bird, has 
been known to swallow an entire cod of moderate size, and a 
Puffin kept in a menagerie to eat as much fish as its whole 
body weighed. Well might the eye-witness to such an 
extraordinary exhibition of gluttony declare, that “ he never 
saw so unsatiahle a devour er and what was still more sur- 
prising, “that the body did not appear to swell the bigger.”^ 
Of the destructive character of Herons with regard to fish 
some idea may he formed, from no less than five eels having 
been found in the stomach of one which was shot. Yoracity 
is not, however, entirely confined to the fishing tribe, for 
some that live upon fruits can dispose of an equally surprising 
quantity. For instance, the Cedar Bird of America, a sort 
of Jay, will devour every fruit or berry that comes in its 
way ; and will gorge itself to such excess, as sometimes to 
he unable to fly, and may he taken hy the hand. Some, 
indeed, although wounded and confined in a cage, have eaten 
apples until suffocation deprived them of life in the course of 
a few days ; and when opened, they were found to he 
crammed to the very mouth. 
Very frequently in woods, or solitary places, round halls, 
or lumps of semidigested substances, composed of small 
hones, claws, feathers, hair, &c., may he found on gateposts 
or rails. These are the discarded remnants of food thrown 
from the gullets of Hawks, Owls, &c., which, if allowed to 
pass into the stomach, might remain so long in an undis- 
solved state as to prove injurious to the living bird. To 
defend the tender lining of this inner passage, the sides and 
under-surface of the tongue, and the upper part of the gullet, 
are furnished with numerous glands, supplying a slimy 
moisture which softens the gullet and smooths the way for 
the admission of the hard substances which are occasionally 
introduced. 
In the upper and hack part of the palate of the Ostrich, 
* Evelyn’s Memoirs. 
