INTERNAL STRUCTURE. 
52 
lower end only reaching the stomach, whilst the rest 
continues in the gullet, and slips down gradually, 
in proportion as these lower ends are consumed. 
The usual food of Gulls consists of flesh ; hut 
when confined, they will thrive very well on a diet 
with which they must he perfectly unacquainted 
by the sea side. We may form, too, some idea of 
their voracity, from the quantity consumed by a 
Gull kept and fed in a garden, which devoured, in 
one day, fourteen mice and two rats. Another was 
seen to swallow an entire rat, an operation, however, 
not accomplished without some difficulty, the bird 
making several efforts before it succeeded, and even 
then the tail remained visible for several minutes. 
But the voracity of Gulls is exceeded by some other 
fish-eating birds. Thus the Pelican, 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 unsatiable a devourer,” and, 
what was still more surprising, “ 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. 
Voracity is not, however, entirely confined to the 
* Evelyn’s Memoirs . 
