20 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



settling the fate of a dor-beetle, too, each time. 

 Sometimes you may find their pellets composed 

 almost entirely of the indigestible shining armour of 

 dor-beetles. 



CROWS AND COCKLES. 



Another favourite article of diet with the hoodie 

 crow has armour, however, which even his strong 

 gizzard cannot always crush. When the hoodie daily 

 follows the retreating tide on the east coast, like 

 our human "cocklers," he has to break open the 

 shells of the cockles that he cunningly digs out of 

 the sand before he can swallow their contents. But 

 some cockles have shells which defy even his iron 

 beak, and then he resorts to the device of the eagle 

 with the tortoise, flying up into the air with the 

 cockle and letting it fall upon some stony place. On 

 one part of the Norfolk coast a half-mile of metalled 

 but abandoned roadway to the beach is thickly strewn 

 with cockle-shells that the hoodies have dropped upon 

 it ; and cockle-shells may also be found lying about 

 the woods where the crows roost at night, perhaps 

 two miles, "as the crow flies," from the sea. It would 

 seem that the hoodies, when obliged to leave their 

 cockle-hunting in the gathering dusk, carry their last 

 capture to their roost, and enjoy a little supper, as it 

 were, in bed. 



