[1] Fact! He composed and spoke the verses as I give them.
* * * * *
THE DEAD ALIVE.--In my youth I often saw Glover on the stage: he was
a surgeon, and a good writer in the London periodical papers. When he
was in Cork, a man was hanged for sheep-stealing, whom Glover smuggled
into a field, and by surgical skill restored to life, though the culprit
had hung the full time prescribed by law. A few nights after, Glover
being on the stage, acting Polonius, the revived sheep-stealer, full of
whisky, broke into the pit, and in a loud voice called out to Glover,
“Mr Glover, you know you are my second father; you brought me to life,
and sure you have to support me now, for I have no money of my own: you
have been the means of bringing me back into the world, sir; so, by the
piper of Blessington, you are bound to maintain me.” Ophelia never could
suppose she had such a brother as this. The sheriff was in the house
at the time, but appeared not to hear this appeal; and on the fellow
persisting in his outcries, he, through a principle of clemency, slipped
out of the theatre. The crowd at length forced the man away, telling him
that if the sheriff found him alive, it was his duty to hang him over
again!--_Recollections of O’Keefe._
[Illustration: LARUS MINUTUS, THE LITTLE GULL.]
This bird, hitherto known in Great Britain only as an occasional and rare
visitant, has now been added to the Fauna of Ireland--one of a pair seen
between Shannon Harbour and Shannon Bridge having been shot in the month
of May of the present year, by Walter Boyd, Esq. of the 97th regiment,
and presented by him to the Natural History Society of Dublin. It has
been stuffed by Mr Glennon of Suffolk Street, who continues to gratify
the lovers of natural history by a free inspection of it.
The Little Gull was first noticed with certainty as a British bird by
Montague, who, in the Supplement to his Ornithological Dictionary,
published in 1813, described an immature specimen, the plumage being that
of the yearling in transition to its winter garb. The Irish specimen, on
the contrary, is invested with its full summer plumage, as described by
Temminck. The head and upper portion of the neck are black; the lower
portion of the neck and under parts of the body are white, and at first
exhibited a rosy tint, which as is usual quickly faded after death; rump
and tail white; upper parts pearl grey, the secondaries and quills being
tipped with white; legs and toes bright red; bill of a reddish brown,
rather than of the deep lake of Temminck, or arterial blood-red of Selby;
its length ten inches, or somewhat more than one-half of that of the
blackheaded gull (_Larus ridibundus_), its nearest congener.
Little has been added to the history of this bird as briefly given by
Temminck as follows:--“It inhabits the rivers, lakes, and seas of the
eastern countries of Europe; is an occasional visitant of Holland and
Germany; is common in Russia, Livonia, and Finland; and very rarely
wanders to the lakes of Switzerland. It feeds on insects and worms, and
breeds in the eastern and southern countries.”
In America the Little Gull was noticed on the northern journey of
Sir John Franklin, and it is numbered by Bonaparte amongst the rarer
birds of the United States--rendering it probable that the American
continent includes also its breeding habitats. To this we may reasonably
add--considering the state of plumage of the Irish specimens, the season
of their discovery, the inland locality in which they were seen, and the
analogy in habits between them and the other blackheaded gulls with which
they were associated--a belief and hope that the Little Gull will yet be
found to breed on some of the wide expanses of the Shannon, or on the
lakes of Roscommon, Leitrim, and Sligo.
To understand the relation of this gull to the other species of the same
genus, it is necessary that we should take a rapid survey of the whole
family; and happy are we to indulge ourselves in such mental rambling, as
many a gladsome reminiscence will be awakened both in our own and in our
readers’ minds by the mention of these well-known birds. Few indeed are
there who at some period of their lives have not wandered to the sea-side
to enjoy the exhilarating influence of the sea breeze, and to revel,
perchance, on the rich feast of knowledge which the many strange but
admirably formed creatures of the deep must ever present to the inquiring
and contemplative mind. To them the sea-mew or gull must be familiar,
both in those of the larger species, which are seen heavily winging
their way over the waters, or poised in air, wheeling round to approach
their surface, and in those of lighter and more aërial form, which, in
the words of Wilson, “enliven the prospect by their airy movements--now
skimming closely over the watery element, watching the motions of the
surges, and now rising into the higher regions, sporting with the winds;”
and we may surely add, still in the words of that enthusiastic worshipper
of Nature, that “such zealous inquirers must have found themselves amply
compensated for all their toil, by observing these neat and clean birds
coursing along the rivers and coasts, and by inhaling the invigorating
breezes of the ocean, and listening to the soothing murmurs of its
billows.” Nor could they fail to notice how admirably the white and grey
tints which prevail in the plumage of these birds harmonize with those
of air and ocean--a species of adaptation which is manifest in all the
works of nature, no colours, however varied, presenting to the eye an
incongruous or disagreeable picture, and no sounds, however modified by
the throats of a thousand feathered warblers, jarring as discord on the
ear. Well may we judge from this that our senses were framed in unison
with all created objects, and that the right test of excellence in music,
painting, or poetry, is, “that it is natural.”
The genus _Larus_ (Gull) of the early writers included many birds now
separated from it--the Skuas, or parasitic gulls; Lestris; the Terns,
or sea-swallows; Sterna; and some others--the consequence of increasing
knowledge in natural science being the gradual limitation of genera by
the use of more precise and restricted characters. All these genera
now form part of the family of Laridæ, or gull-like birds--the system
of grouping together those genera which exhibit striking analogies in
plumage or habits securing the advantages of a natural arrangement,
without the danger of that confusion which so often results from loosely
defined genera. The tendency is indeed to still further subdivision--the
kittiwake (_Larus rissa_) having been made the type of a new genus, Rissa
(Stephens), and the blackheaded gulls classed together as the genus
_Xema_ (Boië)--the periodic change of the colour of their heads from the
white of winter to the black of summer, their more rapid and tern or
swallow-like flight, and their inland habits, forming so many striking
and apparently natural marks of distinction. To this genus, if finally
admitted, will belong the Little Gull (_Xema minuta_).
The term _Larus_ is adopted from the Greek, the ancient Latin name as
used by Pliny being _Gavia_. Brisson (1763) applies _Larus_ to some of
the larger species, and _Gavia_ to a multitude of others; but there
is much confusion in his identifications of species, and the line of
separation was not well considered. Modern writers also subdivide the
gulls, for the sake of convenience, into two sections--the larger, or
those varying from nineteen to twenty-six or more inches in length, the
“Goelands” of Temminck; and the smaller, or “Mouettes” of Temminck. But
this system of division is imperfect, as it veils the remarkable relation
existing between many of the larger and smaller gulls, which should not
therefore be separated from each other. This relation was noticed by
some of the earlier writers. Willoughby designates under the name _Larus
cinereus maximus_ both the herring and the lesser blackbacked gulls; and
under that of _Larus cinereus minor_, the common sea-gull. This kind of
relation is indeed strikingly displayed amongst British gulls--as in the
greater and lesser blackbacked gulls, the Glaucous and Iceland gulls, the
herring and common gulls, and, we may add, the blackheaded and little
gulls; and it is very probable that further research will show that it
exists still more widely.
From Aristotle or Pliny little can be gleaned of the history of these
birds. Aristotle states that the Gaviæ and Mergi lay two or three
eggs on the rock--the Gaviæ in summer, the Mergi in the beginning of
spring--hatching the eggs, but not building in the manner of other birds.
Pliny says that the Gaviæ build on rocks, the Mergi sometimes on trees;
from which remark it appears probable that the genus _Mergus_ then
included not merely the various divers, but also the cormorants, as was
formerly conjectured by Turner. Whilst, therefore, the ancient Latin name
of gull, _Gavia_, has been entirely removed from modern nomenclature,
the word Mergus has obtained a signification very limited in comparison
to that which it enjoyed among the ancients, being now applied to the
Mergansers alone, although for a time restored by Brisson to the Colymbi,
which, as possessing the property of diving in its highest perfection,
seem most entitled to retain it, whilst the term _Merganser_ might be
judiciously applied to the genus now called by some, _Mergus_, as was
done by Aldrovandus, Willoughby, Brisson, and Stephens.
The remarkable differences in the habits of gulls, which form in part the
basis of separation, as suggested by Boië in the case of the blackheaded
gulls, were early noticed. Old Gesner (1587) says that some gulls dwell
about fresh waters, others about the sea; and from Aristotle, that the
grey gull seeks lakes and rivers, whilst the white gull inhabits the sea.
Every one indeed must have noticed the flocks of gulls which occasionally
appear inland, and share with the rooks and other corvidæ the rich
repast of grubs which is afforded by the fresh-ploughed land. The common
gull (_Larus canus_) is one of those which indulge in these terrestrial
excursions; but the blackheaded gulls (_Xema_) select even the inland
marshes as their breeding-places. The more truly maritime gulls select
islands or rocks, on the surface of which they deposit their eggs, as the
kittiwake the narrow ledges of precipitous cliffs, the young being reared
with safety, where it would seem that the least movement must plunge them
from the giddy height into the abyss below. This beautiful illustration
of the power of instinct to preserve even the nestling from danger, is
admirably displayed on the northern coast of Mayo, where at Downpatrick
Head the whole face of the perpendicular limestone cliff is peopled by
line above line of gulls, flying, when disturbed by a stone thrown either
from mischievous or curious hand, in screaming flocks from their eggs
or young, and as quickly settling upon them again, without, as it were,
disturbing the equilibrium of either in a place where to move would be
to tumble into destruction. The clamour of the kittiwake is indeed so
great on such occasions that it has given rise in the Feroe Islands to a
proverb, “noisy as the Rita in the rocks.” The eggs of several species of
gulls are used as food, being regularly sought for as such on the coast
of Devonshire and other maritime places, but those of the blackheaded
gulls are considered the best, and often substituted for plover eggs.
The flesh of gulls was considered by the ancients unfit for the food of
man; not so by the moderns, who, though probably no great admirers of
it, have not entirely rejected it. Hence Willoughby tells us (1678) that
“the sea-crows (blackheaded gulls) yearly build and breed at Norbury in
Staffordshire, in an island in the middle of a great pool, in the grounds
of Mr Skrimshew, distant at least 30 miles from the sea. About the
beginning of March hither they come; about the end of April they build.
They lay three, four, or five eggs of a dirty green colour, spotted with
dark brown, two inches long, of an ounce and half weight, blunter at one
end. The first down of the young is ash-coloured, and spotted with black.
The first feathers on the back, after they are fledged, are black. When
the young are almost come to their full growth, those entrusted by the
lord of the soil drive them from off the island through the pool, into
nets set in the banks to take them. When they have taken them, they feed
them with the entrails of beasts; and when they are fat, sell them for
fourpence or fivepence a-piece. They take yearly about one thousand two
hundred young ones; whence may be computed what profit the lord makes of
them. About the end of July they all fly away and leave the island.” And
in Feroe, according to Landt (1798), the flesh of the kittiwake is not
only eaten, but considered “well-tasted.” As pets, gulls have always on
the sea-coast been favourites, Gesner quotes from Oppian, “That gulls
are much attached to man--familiarly attend upon him; and, when watching
the fishermen, as they draw their nets and divide the spoil, clamorously
demand their share.” In our own boyish experience we knew one, poor
Tom, which grew up under our care to maturity, and, unrestrained by any
artificial means, flew away and returned again as inclination impelled
it--recognising and answering our voice even when flying high in air
above. But, alas! like too many pets, he fell a sacrifice to the loss of
that instinct which would have led him to shun danger. He joined a crowd
of water-fowl on a small lake on the Start Bay Sands. His companions,
alarmed at the approach of the fowler, flew unharmed away; but poor
Tom, with ill-judged confidence, left the water and walked fearlessly
toward the enemy of all winged creatures, who could not allow even a
gull to escape, and, alas! he was the next moment stretched lifeless on
the sand. Here we shall arrest our pen. Perhaps we have dwelt too long
on this interesting genus of birds, and yet we would hope that some
of our readers may profit by our remarks, and be led to watch with an
inquisitive eye the many animated beings which surround them, and thus
to read in Nature’s never-tiring, never-exhausted volume, new lessons of
wisdom--new proofs of the exalted intelligence which has created every
thing perfect and good of its kind.