ON BIRDS. 363 



their tongues, which are so long as to be coiled round 

 their heads. WHITE. 



GROSBEAK. Mr. B. shot a cock grosbeak, which 

 he had observed to haunt his garden for more than 

 a fortnight. I began to accuse this bird of making 

 sad havock among the buds of the cherries, goose- 

 berries, and wall-fruit of all the neighbouring or- 

 chards. Upon opening its crop, or craw, no buds 

 were to be seen ; but a mass of kernels of the stones 

 of fruits. Mr. B. observed, that this bird frequented 

 the spot where plum-trees grow ; and that he had 

 seen it with somewhat hard in its mouth, which it 

 broke with difficulty ; these were the stones of dam- 

 sons. The Latin ornithologists call this bird cocco- 

 thraustes, i. e. berry-breaker, because, with its large 

 horny beak, it cracks and breaks the shells of stone 

 fruits for the sake of the seed or kernel. Birds of 

 this sort are rarely seen in England, and only in 

 winter. WHITE. 



I have never seen this rare bird but during the 

 severest cold of the hardest winters : at which season 

 of the year, I have had in my possession two or three 

 that were killed in this neighbourhood in different 

 years. MARKWICK. 



OWLS. Mr. White has observed, p. 159, that the 

 owl returns to its young with food once in five 

 minutes. Mr. Montague has observed, that the wren 

 returns once in two minutes, or upon an average 

 thirty- six times in an hour; and this continued full 

 sixteen hours in a day, which, if equally divided be- 

 tween eight young ones, each would receive seventy- 

 two feeds in the day, the whole amounting to five 

 hundred and seventy-six. See Ornitholog. Diet. p. 

 35. To this, I will add, that the swallow never fails 



