VAEIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 333 



I conclude, of ants, which are their food. While they hold their 

 bills in the grass, they draw out their prey with their tongues, 

 which are so long as to be coiled round their heads. 



GROSBEAK. 



Mr. B. shot a cock-grosbeak which he had observed to haunt 

 his garden for more than a fortnight. I began to accuse this bird 

 of making sad havock among the buds of the cherries, goose- 

 berries, and wall-fruit of all the neighbouring orchards. Upon 

 opening its crop or craw, no buds were to be seen ; but a mass of 

 kernels of the stones of fruits. Mr. B. observed that this bird 

 frequented the spot where plum-trees grow ; and that he had 

 seen it with somewhat hard in its mouth, which it broke with 

 difficulty ; these were the stones of damsons. The latin orni- 

 thologists call this bird coccothraustes, i. e. berry-breaker, because 

 with its large homy beak it cracks and breaks the shells of stone- 

 fruits for the sake of the seed or kernel. Birds of this sort are 

 rarely seen in England, and only in winter. ^ 



OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 



SHEEP. 



The sheep on the downs this winter (1769) are very ragged, and 

 their coats much torn ; the shepherds say they tear their fleeces 

 with their own mouths and horns, and they are always in that 

 way in mild wet winters, being teased and tickled with a kind 

 of lice. 



After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great confusion and 

 bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to distinguish 

 one another as before. This embarrassment seems not so much 

 to arise from the loss of the fleece, which may occasion an altera- 

 tion in their appearance, as from the defect of that notus odor, 

 discriminating each individual personally; which also is con- 

 founded by the strong scent of the pitch and tar wherewith they 



1 [" Of late years this species has become much commoner in England, nesting 

 now in many counties where formerly it was chiefly observed as a winter visitant." 

 — Harting.l 



