TASTE OF INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 185 



attest any perception of wisdom and of goodness 

 is a laudable and just homage of the creature who 

 observes it *." 



The compiler of Bewick says that the bullfinch 

 (Pyrrhula vulgaris, TEMMINCK) " in the spring 

 frequents gardens, where it is usefully busy in 

 destroying the worms which are lodged in the tender 

 buds t." This has been repeated by others J, and we 

 were disposed from casual observation to consider 

 it a correct statement, reasoning in part from the 

 analogy of the torn-tit (Parus cceruleus, RAY) and 

 birds of similar habit, which do not, we believe, destroy 

 any buds. But we have positive fact, always better than 

 the most plausible analogy, to prove that seed-eating 

 birds do eat buds. We observed, for instance, in 

 the winter of 1831-2, though unusually mild, that 

 the buds of our currant bushes were extensively de- 

 stroyed by the house-sparrow (Passer domesticus). 

 We find also that tame green birds and canaries will 

 feed upon buds or almost any vegetable substance 

 which they can manducate, but refuse all insects . 



In February, 1799, Dr. Townson opened the 

 stomachs of two bullfinches that had been shot in a 

 cherry-tree, and, exclusively of a few grains of sand 

 and some small pebbles, he found nothing but 

 embryo flowers. " I could discover," he says, " with 

 the assistance of my lens, all the parts of the flowers. 

 The mischief these two little epicures had done, and 

 probably at one breakfast, is incredible. From the 

 quantity of buds I found in their stomachs, each of 

 which was composed of four or five flowers, I think 

 they had not eaten less than a thousand a-piece ||." 



The testimony of Mr. Knapp, to the same circum- 



[* Journal of a Naturalist, p. 150, 3d edit. 



f Birds, i. 166, edit. 1826. 



J See Townson's Tracts, p. 157. 



J. R. |1 Tracts on Nat. Hist. p. 158. 



