PALLAS'S SAND-GEOUSE. 395 



In all cases tliey appeared in good condition, the 

 internal parts exhibiting signs of perfect health, and 

 the crops in most cases were filled with green food; 

 some few, however, had empty crops, but their gizzards 

 (extremely muscular) were filled with the debris of seeds 

 and small fragments of flint. No trace of animal or 

 insect food was, I believe, found in any of them, either 

 in our eastern counties or in other parts of England. Of 

 the first female picked up on Yarmouth beach. Captain 

 Longe says : — '^ The gizzard contained an enormous 

 quantity of sma,ll stones and sand, some of the stones 

 were nearly twice the size of mustard seeds, and weighed 

 three-quarters of a dram." This I found the case in 

 most of them myself, but in some much more sand than 

 flints. The contents of the crops (in one case filling two 

 table spoons) were various, consisting, in the opinion of 

 several local botanists, chiefly of small yellow grass seeds, 

 mixed with the seeds and cases of black medick or non- 

 such (Medicago lupuUna), sedge (Carex), dock [Rumex), 

 chickweed [Stellaria and Cerastium) , and in some 

 instances, small sprigs of the biting stonecrop (Sedum 

 o,cre), so abundant on the sand-hills of our eastern coast. 

 Those taken from one of the Yarmouth birds, being of 

 four different kinds, were sown in pots under the care of 

 Mr. Youell, at his nursery grounds, and were proved 

 by this experiment to belong to Medicago minima, 

 Chenopodium album, Polygonum convolvolus, and Poa 

 annua. The plants were submitted to the editor of the 

 "Gardeners' Chronicle," who concurred as to their 

 identity. Three of the birds shot at Horsey, on the 

 10th of June, by Captain Rising, contained no other 

 seed in their crops than the Sagina procumbens (pearl- 

 wort). The seed of the Polygonum convolvolus was 

 probably mistaken for Rumex in the first instance. Mr. 

 Southwell, of Fakenham, who most kindly placed 

 his own notes on this species at my disposal, took 

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