The Zoologist — November, 1874. 4223 



I have found the undeveloped tops of the flowers of the lime 

 and plane trees in the crops of their young when taken from the 

 nest. 



In the spring I was puzzled to account for the great destruction 

 of the primroses all round this place and in the Dene : they 

 appeared to have been simply pulled off the stem and left lying on 

 the ground. At first I blamed the children, as I have often seen 

 them stringing the flowers together for necklaces; the gardener 

 declared it was the rabbits ; then I thought of mice ; and so on. 

 It was, however, soon settled, for the same thing was seen in a 

 garden, where at least neither children nor rabbits were admitted. 

 Watch was kept, and it turned out that the greenfinches and 

 sparrows were the guilty parties, chiefly the greenfinches, which 

 are far more destructive than the sparrows, particularly amongst 

 the sprouting crops. I have watched the greenfinch pull up fully 

 a yard of drilled turnips at a meal, eating only the small leaflets 

 [cotyledonous leaves] and seeds, leaving the stems scattered along 

 the line like clippings of silver wire. I have often wondered how 

 birds can draw these seeds out of the ground, especially when it is 

 dry and hard, without breaking the stems. I find they invariably 

 break when an attempt is made to pull them with the finger and 

 thumb. It is curious, too, how seldom one can succeed in drawing 

 a worm without breaking it, and how easy it seems to a thrush or 

 blackbird ; although, by the bye, I remember once seeing a thrush 

 fail in trying to draw a large worm, when a blackbird made a dart at 

 it, causing the thrush to leave off", and drew it at once, possibly from 

 his superior strength, or because the work was already half done. 

 I ought to have mentioned that only the green part of the primroses 

 at the top of the stem were eaten — I suppose, from its containing 

 the nectar, 



I was walking leisurely down the Dene when I felt a smart slap 

 on the cheek. I observed the object fall to the ground, and looking 

 down I saw something spinning round, which on closer examination 

 proved to be a large bluebottle fly and a wasp stuck to it, busily 

 engaged in cutting off" the fly's wings, which it soon succeeded in 

 doing, and then commenced to eat it. 



John Sclater. 



Castle Eden, Durliam.- 



