SOME BIRD NOTES 225 



bachelor, for so far domestic duties have not been undertaken 

 by him. 



I observed starlings in small flocks, on the evening of 

 July 1 2th, 1906, flying to the Fritton reed-beds a rather 

 early resorting thither to roost for the night. 



THE TURDID^E AND THEIR FOOD 



The market gardeners in the villages around Yarmouth 

 are for ever crying out against the supposed ravages, among 

 strawberries and other fruit, of the common thrush, the 

 blackbird, and others of that ilk. In season and out of 

 season they are continually shooting these birds in the 

 summer days because of their alleged depredations ; in 

 winter because of their remembrance of them, and for the 

 sake of the few pence big bunches of these birds will realise 

 in the Saturday's market. It was a fortunate circumstance, 

 for the birds, that in June, 1897, a scourge of fruit-loving 

 beetles (Harpalus ruficornis 1 } infested the strawberry-beds 

 in certain villages lying north of the town. For a time it 

 led to some consideration being shown to the Turdidce, when 

 it had been pointed out that they might have been useful in 

 the thinning out of the pest, had they not been so ruthlessly 

 killed. Some of the correspondence which appeared on the 

 subject in the Norfolk papers fills some pages in my " Note- 

 books," extracts from which may not be uninteresting. 



The long-continued, warm, dry weather which characterised 

 the early summer of 1897, caused great inconvenience to the 

 various birds composing the thrush genus in the matter of 

 food procuration. Worms, for instance, went deep into the 

 earth for moisture ; and snails, slugs, and the like left their 

 usual haunts and sought more promising places : they for- 

 gathered in the strawberry-gardens, finding moisture and 

 palatable food in the ripe, luscious fruit sheltered by the 

 broad trifoliate leaves. To these places the thrushes and 

 blackbirds naturally repaired ; and, of course, the gardeners 

 seeing them there, and also noticing the holes bored in the 

 ripest and biggest of their fruit, unthinkingly decided that 

 the coming of the birds and the spoliation of their straw- 

 berries were more than a coincidence. So they began shoot- 



1 Vide Harpalus ruficornis in Notes of an East Coast Naturalist ', pp. 293-6. 

 Q 



