400 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



making sad havoc 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 damsons. The Latin ornithologists call this bird 

 Coccothraustes, 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. 



