320 
PREDATORY INSTINCTS. 
it takes me to describe the act. For a moment you 
would see the paddling feet of the poor little wretch 
protruding from the mouth; then came a distension of 
the neck as it descended into the stomach; a few 
moments more, and the young gulls were feeding on 
the ejected morsel. 
The mother-duck, of course nearly distracted, battles, 
and battles /well; but she cannot always reassemble 
her brood; and in her efforts to defend one, un¬ 
covering the others, I have seen her left as destitute 
as Niobe. Hans tells me that in such cases she 
adopts a new progeny; and, as he is well versed in 
the habits of the bird, I see no reason to doubt his 
assertion. 
The glaucous is not the only predatory gull of Smith’s 
Strait. In fact, all the Arctic species, without including 
their cousins the jagers, have the propensity strongly 
marked. I have seen the ivory gull, the most beautiful 
and snowy St. Agnes of the ice-fields, seize our wounded 
awks, and, after a sharp battle, carry them off in her 
talons. A novel use of a palmated foot. 
I could sentimentalize on these bereavements of the 
ducks and their companions in diet: it would be only 
the every-day sermonizing of the world. But while 
the gulls were fattening their young on the eiders, the 
eiders were fattening theirs on the lesser life of the sea, 
and we were as busily engaged upon both in true pre¬ 
datory sympathy. The squab-gull of Hans Island has 
a well-earned reputation in South Greenland for its 
delicious juices, and the eggs of Eider Island can well 
