And few courses of carrion should come to my table.—
Apropos of that matter, two birds are before us,
Whose habits I hold to be quite indecorous—
The Rice-bird, and Tumbler—let’s hoot them in chorus!
E’en a Saint, or a Stock-fish, would storm at the first,
For cramming his crop till his bowels are burst:
The second—yes—look how he tumbles and reels,
Having swill’d till he knows not his head from his heels!
[19] ]For the Rice-bird—I blame more than wonder perhap—
But who taught the Tumbler his way to a tap?”—