324 OUH NATIVE SONGSTERS. 



young codlin-trees, that for several years had blos- 

 somed and borne profusely, and had, at that time, 

 every appearance of health, my curiosity was ex- 

 cited on this subject, and I then saw opened the 

 crops of two of these depredators. They were 

 wholly filled with the vegetable matter on which 

 the birds had been feeding, and which did not 

 appear to contain insects of any kind. Since that 

 time the codlin-trees have never grown with so 

 much vigour as they did previously, many branches 

 being so entirely stripped of buds that they never 

 recovered. This spring the trial was repeated, and 

 when the trees were in a more advanced state, in 

 fact, just as the leaves were beginning to expand, 

 and the blossom-buds to make their appearance, 

 a culprit bullfinch was killed in the very act, an 

 uns wallowed morsel yet remaining in his bill, to 

 bear witness against him. This was a single 

 flower-bud, with all its parts yet entire ; but those 

 buds with which its crop, the passage thence to the 

 gizzard, and the gizzard itself, were completely 

 filled, appeared to consist only of the future fruit 

 with the stamens and pistils attached to it, but 

 stripped of calyx and petals and of its internal 

 coveiing. The anthers, large in comparison with 



