8816 Birds. 



mals and birds considered to be useful and hurtful to agriculture in France. These 

 specimens are borrowed, we believe, from the galleries of the Jardin des Plantes. 

 They are all correctly named and labelled, and were, as we are informed, selected for 

 the purpose by M. Florent-Prevost, Aide-Naturaliste to the Museum of. Natural His- 

 tory of that establishment, — a name well known in the literature of Ornithology. The 

 same gentleman exhibited (885) a very interesting series of the dried contents of the 

 stomachs of the principal birds of France, arranged in order, with the object of showing 

 the nature of their food. Each specimen is marked with the date at which it was 

 obtained, and, as an accurate register has been kept of the birds' stomachs examined 

 in this way for the last twenty-fuur years, the resume gives a very fair notion of the 

 nature of the sustenance of the birds of France in all seasons, and affords a base 

 upon which they may be divided into the two catalogues of utiles and nuisibles" — 

 Ibis, Vol. iv. p. 287 (July, 1862). 



Food of Small Birds.— In your paper on the " Food of Small Birds " (Zool. 8760) 

 should we not read "crow" for "rook"? or are we to understand that M. Prevost 

 finds, from actual observation or examination, that the food of the rook, amongst other 

 things, consists of "birds, field-mice, young rabbits, different animals and decaying 

 substances"? If this assertion be correct, the rooks in France must live differently to 

 those in England, I fancy, or my notions respecting the food of this species are erro- 

 neous. At all events, I may be allowed to say that, though I have repeatedly watched 

 rooks feeding through a glass, and have examined the stomachs of several after they 

 had been shot, I never could discover either the remains of " different animals" or 

 " decaying substances ;" nor have I hitherto heard of such 'a. discovery having been 

 made. I am therefore anxious to be set right on this point. — /. Edmund Harting ; 

 Kingsbury, October 12, 1863. 



[I can throw no additional light on this subject. — E. Newman.'] 



Scarcity of certain Summer Birds. — Mr. Boulton notes (Zool. 8726) the scarcity of 

 some of the summer birds of passage in Yorkshire. I have remarked the same in this 

 district (West Sussex). The wryneck did not arrive until the 11th of April, which is 

 some days later than usual ; and I have not seen or heard more than one or two all 

 the summer, whereas in former years we have had great numbers of them about, and 

 their note has been common almost every day through the months of April and May. 

 The redstart also, though it does not breed here, usually visits us on its way north- 

 ward, arriving from the 2nd to the 6th of April; this year it did not appear until the 

 14th, and then in extremely limited numbers. The redbacked shrike, again, was both 

 late and scarce ; and the same may be said of almost all the summer migrants. The 

 wood and grasshopper.vvarblers, on the contrary, have been more numerous this year 

 than formerly. Can you or any of your readers assign a cause for the lateness of arri- 

 val and scarcity above mentioned? — W. Jejfery,jun. ; Ratham, Chichester, Septem- 

 ber 9, 1863. 



Arrival and Departure of Summer Birds at Taunton. — I enclose a list of the sum- 

 mer migratory birds I have been able to observe this year. As to swallows, I first saw 

 them at Paignton, near Torquay, on the 10th of April, and here in Somersetshire on 

 the 12th. Swifts I first saw on the 8th of May, at Teignmouth, and they must have 

 departed betweeu the 18th and 25th of August, during which time I was away, as 

 there were plenty of them when I went, but none when I returned. Spotted flycatchers 

 I also missed about the 31st of August : — Swallows, April 10th and 20th ; chiffchaff, 

 15th; redstart, 16th; common sandpiper, 17th; sand martin, 12th; yellow wagtail, 



