2572 Birds. 



tions on the habits of cormorants and divers, how great are the expansive properties 

 of the gullet in all piscivorous birds. After dropping it on the floor of the nest he 

 commenced, by repeated blows of his beak, to lacerate and tear the flesh from the 

 bones, and seemed to accomplish his task in an incredibly short space of time by 

 means of the admirable tool with which Nature had furnished him, performing at once 

 the double duties of pickaxe and pincers ; then followed the feeding of the young 

 birds, and so economical a housekeeper and skilful carver did he prove, that when I 

 had afterwards the curiosity to ascend to his nest, I found, as the remains of the 

 repast, little else than the back-bone of a fish which might have weighed nearly a 

 pound, with a few ragged bits of flesh adhering to it ; even the head had been 

 devoured.'' — page 22. 



The subject of migration is treated with much skill, and ornithologists are deeply 

 indebted to Mr. Knox for his capital and novel observations on this subject : it has 

 been too much the fashion to regard certain insectivorous birds as the only migrants, 

 but recent observations have shown that the conirostral tribes are present in certain 

 localities in the summer, and absent in the winter, this is particularly the case with 

 goldfinches in Herefordshire, a subject to which I particularly invited the attention of 

 my readers as far back as May 1845 (see Zool. 983). Mr. Knox appears to have 

 assiduously entered on the field of observation, which I then ventured to recommend, 

 and to have established as facts certain positions which I then only advanced as hypo- 

 theses. 



" The advanced guard of this emigrant host usually makes its appearance in the 

 neighbourhood of Worthing, Shoreham and Brighton, about the latter end of August 

 or early in September, and is generally composed of detachments of meadow pipits 

 (Anthus pratensis), pied wagtails (Motacillla Yarrelli), tree pipits (Anthus arboreus), 

 and yellow wagtails (Motacilla jlava), the two first-named species being generally 

 understood to be permanent residents in England during the whole year. Many of 

 those birds certainly do remain with us during the winter, but I am disposed to think 

 that these are the natives of more northern and western counties, which, having pro- 

 ceeded thus far towards the south-east, are, as it were, satisfied with this partial migra- 

 tion, and do not cross the Channel, unless subsequently compelled to do so by unusual 

 severity of weather at a much later period of the year. 



" But the troops of these autumnal voyagers do not consist merely of dentirostral 

 or exclusively insectivorous birds; the conirostral tribe furnishes many recruits, gold- 

 finches (Carduelis elegans), gray linnets (Linota cannabina), and green grosbeaks 

 (Coccothraustes chloris), pass in considerable numbers; and such multitudes of the 

 first-named species are occasionally taken, that the market of the song-bird dealers is 

 literally glutted with them, even their most capacious family-cages being quite filled 

 with recently captured goldfinches, and from this circumstance, as well as from the 

 comparatively trifling value attached to these birds at this season — when, from the 

 immaturity of the greater proportion of the little prisoners, and the deficient state of 

 their plumage, the sex cannot be satisfactorily ascertained — they are frequently 

 doomed to death, and being afterwards tied up with yellow-wagtails, green grosbeaks 

 and gray linnets, in variegated bundles, from which their own little crimson heads 

 protrude like ripe berries, they are hawked about by the juvenile members of the bird- 

 catching fraternity, and occasionally sold to those who can find it in their hearts to 

 purchase such an ornithological bouquet. 



" I have already said that many of our conirostral or hard-billed birds, as well as 



