DIVING BIRDS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19793, 17 March 1927, Page 10

DIVING BIRDS

THE TABLES TURNED. WHERE THE FISH SCORES. Birds that catch fish are common enough, as witness the familiar kingfisher, various wild ducks and the multitudes of others which make their homes on seaside cliffs. Also there is the osprey and it is to be remembered that the United States Government offers a bounty in Alaska for the destruction of its national emblem, the American bald eagle, because of its inroads on the river salmon, although within the United States proper the bird is protected by law. But for fish to catch birds is quite another matter. In the Antarctic seas whales sometimes snap up—or down—penguins; but that hardly counts, for the penguin is a queer sort of bird that cannot fly, while the whale is, in fact, not a fish at all—contrary to the belief held my many. Now, however, according to Breton fishermen, the fish known as the angler, common in European waters, is | given to catching and swallowing whole such birds as puffins, or sca-par--1 rots, and trottellumes, both fairly large birds. Such birds have been found in the stomach of an angler fish in a condition which proved that they had been captured while alive. It is known that the sea parrot is a diving bird that can live under water for two or three minutes and is said to dive as deep as sixty metres. So it is assumed that the birds while diving for fish themselves arc seized and swallowed, becoming prey of the angler fish.