8882 Birds. 
Coxworth, however, soon pointed out to Lundie a large flock of birds which had alighted 
on a hawthorn fence, and from which they found the noise originated. Seeing that 
these birds were unusual in appearance as in voice, both the men advanced sufficiently 
near to detect the species. They turned out to be a large flock of the Bohemian wax- 
wing or waxwing chatterer (Bombycilla garrula), numbering at the least, on a rough 
computation, several dozens. On the two preceding days this locality was visited by 
a severe storm, to which circumstance Lundie attributed the presence of this flock of 
Bohemian waxwings in the immediate vicinity of the town of Beverley. I have no 
hesitation in accepting this story as correct, inasmuch as I have known the narrator 
all my life, and have reason to consider him an honest and respectable man; more- 
over, he has been more or less an observer of nature for many years, and a birdstuffer 
also (after a fashion) into the bargain, so that he was not likely to confuse the species, 
which is at once so striking in its characteristics and so rare. On Sunday, November 
8th, 1863, Robert Parks, bricklayer, resident in Beverley, saw three strange birds in 
his orchard, which is close to the town. On the following day they were still in the 
orchard, and at various intervals during the day Parks succeeded in shovting all of 
them. Mr. John Stephenson, of the Hull-Bridge House, Beverley, was fortunate 
enough to secure them, and they were forwarded by him to Mr. R. Richardson, of 
Beverley, for preservation. I saw these birds at his house, and they were good speci- 
mens of the Bohemian waxwing in various stages of maturity. On dissection one 
proved to be an old female specimen in splendid plumage ; another a male, probably of 
the second year; and the third was a young female of the present year. On November 
19th a young female of this species was brought to me. It had been shot by John 
Mundy, a bargeman, whilst feeding amongst some hawthorn bushes on Figham, one 
of the common pastures of Beverley. It was alone. On November 2lst a very fine 
mature male specimen was brought to me by Mundy. He had just shot it, and it was 
still warm. He saw and shot it near to the place where he shot the first specimen. 
This bird also was alone. No other specimen has since been shot in this neighbourhood 
to my knowledge. On dissection I found in the case of all the five specimens recorded 
that the only food in crop or gizzard was the fruit of the hawthorn. I had previously 
Supposed that all hard-billed birds, were in the habit of swallowing grit and small 
portions of sand or gravel to aid the gizzard in the mechanical trituration of the food. 
I found, however, that in all these five specimens of this bird there had not been the 
smallest portion of grit swallowed with the food. I observed, however, that natural 
instinct had suggested a most efficient substitute for those ordinary mechanical aids, 
So necessary to the digestive process in hard-billed birds. The haws or haw-berries 
were evidently swallowed whole. On entering the gizzard they became subjected to 
a rotatory rubbing or grinding action between the muscular walls of that organ, the 
effect of which process was that the hard stones containing the seed of the hawthorn 
rubbed forcibly one upon another, ground off their own fleshy coverings (the necessary 
food of the bird), and reduced these to a pulp ready for assimilation. The stones 
themselves, having performed their office of grinders or triturators, passed gradually, 
one by one, into the intestine, from whence they were eventually voided with the excre- 
ment, still unbroken and unaltered. These stones or seeds were in no instance broken, 
and I found them both in crop, gizzard and intestines. In the crop they were still 
covered by the flesh of the hawberry intact. In the gizzard they were more or less 
denuded of their fleshy covering, caused by mutual pressure and friction, under the 
action of this muscular organ or natural mill. In the intestines they presented them- 
