Auk 
Jan. 
3) BEAL, food of European Birds. 
anterior two or three and the last. affords insertion to four groups 
of short bristles, to which muscles are attached, and by means of 
which the worm progresses. ‘The bristles may be made to point 
in either direction, according as the worm wishes to advance or 
retreat. When pointed toward the tail, they hold the worm as it 
crawls ahead; when directed ahead, they give foothold for 
retrograde movement. 
Now a person would suppose that the presence of several 
hundred little bristles, all pointing the ‘ wrong way,’ would inter- 
fere with, easy and pleasurable deglutition; and inasmuch as a 
worm, normally, crawls ahead, and not back, I expected to see my 
Thrush swallow worms head first, when, it is to be presumed, the 
bristles in question would not retard the process. As a matter of 
‘fact the contrary method, as noted above, was followed. Once in 
a while, a small worm was seized by the middle and doubled, or 
taken by the head ; but careful observation, extending over several 
days, brought out so few instances of this kind that I am con- 
vinced it was a rule with the bird to swallow earthworms tail first. 
The fact that the worm often made some progress in its attempt 
to escape from the bird’s mouth would indicate that the bristles 
were in working order, despite rough treatment, and that they were 
pointed back, toward the tail of the worm. From this we must 
infer, either that the bird was indifferent to the rasping of the 
bristles on the walls of its throat, or that the sharp resistance they 
exhibited added spice and flavor to the writhing morsel. But, for 
all that, any explanation is merely conjecture, and why the Hermit 
Thrush should choose to begin its meal with the tail of its victim 
remains a curious, though not a profound, subject for speculation. 
RECENT INVESTIGATIONS, (OF (Eh kOOD RON 
EUROPEAN BIRDS. 
BY F. E. L. BEAL. 
A PAPER upon the food of the Rook (Corvus frugilegus) by Dr. 
Hollrung, appears in the Seventh Annual Report of the Experi- 
