ne he 
Birds. 9043 
period how or where could the bird have found a supply of plums or damsons? In 
consequence of their value these fruits are usually gathered before they are fully ripe, 
so that comparatively few are lost by dropping from the trees, and these few would, in 
the intervening lapse of time, have become so trodden into the soil, or covered with 
compost of various kinds, that the stones would be hard to find. Now the wild plum, 
bullace, or ‘sloe,” as we here term it, is very late in ripening, and when fully ripe and 
fallen is less liable to be lost than the garden-plum, besides which the fruit-stone will 
often be found adhering to the stem long after the fleshy portion has been removed. 
Moreover, the hawfinch is a wild, shy bird, and frequents woods, plantations and cop- 
pices, rather than gardens, and consequently meets with the wild fruit more naturally 
and readily than with the cultivated. May not the kernels found in the gizzard of 
Mr. Tyrer’s specimen be, after all, those of the bullace or sloe? Mr. Tyrer goes on to 
say that, in addition to these kernels, he found “a quantity of flint-grit; not a single 
piece of the broken fruit-stone.” Did Mr. Tyrer submit this apparently flint-grit to 
the powers of a lens or magnifying-glass? Trusting to my naked eye, I once thought 
that the kernels in the gizzard of a hawfinch I dissected were mixed up with a 
quantity of flint-grit; but, on carefully examining these semi-transparent particles 
with a magnifying-glass, they proved to be, without exception, minutely broken portions 
of the fruit-stone. I cannot help thinking that if Mr. Tyrer thus tests the apparently 
flinty grit found in the gizzard of his hawfinch, he will be induced to reconsider his 
first decision as to its nature. I do not wish it to be supposed for one moment that I 
consider it unlikely or even unnatural that a hawfinch should have swallowed grit with 
its food. The hawfinch is a bird with a true gizzard, and therefore must swallow 
foreign substances to aid the organ in crushing its contents. These aids play as 
important a part in the digestive process of birds as the teeth do in that of animals, ° 
and are just as necessary to complete and perfect assimilation. Nature most wonder- 
fully accommodates herself to circumstances, and although I could never find that 
caged hawfinches swallowed the grit offered them, I have no doubt that were they 
compelled to live on the buds of trees or softer food than we have found them 
selecting in a state of nature, they would eagerly substitute grit fur the broken fruit- 
stone. I still think, however, it will be found, as a rule, that birds living on either 
the flesh or kernel of stone-fruit will prefer the stone of the fruit on which they have 
fed, either whole or broken, according to the part selected for food, rather than any 
other hard substance, as an aid to the digestive function. In reply to Mr. Tyrer’s 
inquiry as to the nature of the soil about Beverley, it is rich loam and clay on chalk 
and gravel—W. W. Boulton; Beverley, March 10, 1864. 
Hawfinches near Eastbourne.—Several hawfinches have been killed here within a 
few days. One in my possession met his death by striking against the lantern of the 
lighthouse called “ Bell Tont,” near Beachy Head, in December last—John Dutton ; 
Eastbourne, March 20, 1864. 
Note on the Yellowhammer’s Nest.—On the 8th of May, 1862, I found the nest of 
a yellowhammer (£mberiza citrinella) at Kingsbury, in a tall, thin hedge, and nearly 
six feet from the ground; it contained two eggs. In this hedge also, a few yards off, 
I found, ov the same day, another nest placed even higher up, but, as it contained 
no eggs, the species is hardly certain, though the nest apparently differed in no way 
from the other.—Charles B. Wharton; Willesden Green. 
Food of the Rook.—One word in answer to Col. Newman and Capt. C. J. Cox, 
who write in the ‘ Zoologist’ (Zool. 8951, 8952) on the food of rooks. I did not mean 
