458 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



WRYNECK. 



THESE birds appear on the grassplots and walks; they 

 walk a little as well as hop, and thrust their bills into 

 the turf, in quest, I conclude, of ants, which are their 

 food. While they hold their bills in the grass, they 

 draw out their prey with their tongues, which are so 

 long as to be coiled round their heads. 



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, gooseberries, and wall-fruit of all 

 the neighbouring orchards. 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 20 . 



close to the plough to devour the worms, &c. that are turned up by that 

 instrument. The redbreast attends the gardener when digging his bor- 

 ders ; and will, with great familiarity and tameness, pick out the worms 

 almost close to his spade, as I have frequently seen. Starlings and mag- 

 pies very often sit on the backs of sheep and deer to pick out their ticks. 

 MARKWICK. 



50 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. 



