350 THE THRUSH FAMILY 



they regurgitate the seeds and skins in the form of pellets, but that 

 the latter are frequently composed for the most part of the soft pulp of 

 the berries in a state showing that digestion had hardly begun before 

 ejection took place. The inference is that the birds were eating for 

 the sake of eating, and that after each meal they promptly made room 

 for the next. Mistle-thrushes have indeed been caught in the act by 

 Mr. W. H. Hudson, who saw them, after devouring yew berries, 

 fly down to a nice spot of green turf, disgorge, and then return to 

 gorge again. He discovered one casting made up of twenty-three 

 whole berries. 1 



To its partiality for mistletoe berries the last-named species owes 

 its name. In devouring the fruit, the bird, in common no doubt with 

 many of its congeners, does the plant a service by disseminating the 

 seeds. As to how it does this there is some difference of opinion. 

 Post-mortem examinations make it clear that very few seeds pass 

 into the bird's intestines. 2 They are generally, as already noted, re- 

 gurgitated ; consequently they can rarely be deposited on boughs 

 after passage through the body. Nor, if the berries are swallowed 

 whole, would one imagine that any seeds could be left on the branches 

 on which the bird wipes its beak ? But Sterland writes as if he had 

 seen this take place : ' The berries are exceedingly viscid, and the 

 seeds frequently cling tenaciously to the bill of the bird, who, to rid 

 itself of them, is compelled to rub its bill on the boughs of trees.' 3 

 Regurgitated pellets may, and doubtless do, occasionally fall on to the 

 branches of various trees, and any seed they contained would be 

 glued to the wood by the viscous pulp in which it is embedded. The 

 fact that the mistletoe is usually found growing on the sides, and not 

 the tops of the boughs has been explained by the semi-fluid nature 

 of the matter deposited. It tends to flow, and being very ductile 

 and cohesive, may sometimes be seen hanging from the boughs in 

 strands some inches in length. 



1 W. H. Hudson, Nature in Downland, p. 229. 



2 Maegillivray, Hist, of British Birds, vol. ii. 3 Sterland, Birds of Sherwood Forest, p. 54. 



