222 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



house, with the hole reduced in size so as to exclude the Starlings. One 

 day a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker was hard at work at the hole, but since 

 then a pair of Wrynecks seem to have taken possession. Some Nuthatches 

 are occupying a nesting-box nailed to the trunk of a Scotch fir, close to the 

 window where I write; they hatched off in the same place last year; the 

 nest, so far as it is visible, is entirely made of thin flakes of the bark of the 

 tree. We have also three Tits' nests in boxes : one in an inverted flower- 

 pot placed on a wall ; one in a drain-pipe, with the ends blocked up and a 

 hole bored in the side, laid in ivy on a wall ; and one in a hollow block of 

 elm, taken from a fernery and placed on end, with a flat stone laid on the 

 top, and an entrance hole cut in the side. A pair of Redstarts are nesting 

 in one of the boxes. Probably more birds would breed in the artificial 

 nesting-places were it not for the number of old decayed beech trees around 

 the house, which contain any amount of suitable holes. It would be a 

 pleasure to me to show the nests above mentioned to any of the readers of 

 ' The Zoologist ' who may be in this neighbourhood, and would like to see 

 them. — Julian G. Tuck (Tostock Rectory, Bury St. Edmunds). 



Food of the Pine Grosbeak. — It is generally supposed that the Pine 

 Grosbeak feeds on the seeds of Coniferae, apparently because it inhabits 

 pine forests, but I do not think its bill is adapted for opening fir-cones, or 

 for extracting the seeds from them. Bullfinches eat the buds of the larch 

 in spring, and perhaps the Pine Grosbeak may eat the buds of the pine 

 at one season of the year. In the winter of 1856-7 I was residing in 

 Montreal, Canada, and observed large flocks of Pine Grosbeaks and 

 Bohemian Waxwings, which frequented the gardens around that beautiful 

 city. The winter was very severe, the thermometer falling as low as -31°. 

 The birds were feeding on the berries of the mountain ash, Pyrus americana, 

 and high cranberry bush, Viburnum opulus. I shot many specimens of 

 both species that winter, and of the Pine Grosbeak in the following one. 

 It was interesting to notice the difference in the mode of feeding of the two 

 birds ; the Grosbeak, having a strong bill, crushed the frozen berries of the 

 mountain ash, rejecting the skins, which were scattered in great quantities 

 over the snow beneath the trees they frequented, and swallowed only the 

 pulp and pips or seeds, the latter to be comminuted by the action of the hard 

 muscular gizzard aided by the small stones that were always present. The 

 pips thus ground up communicated a strong odour of prussic acid to the 

 whole body. The Waxwings having a weak bill, capacious oesophagus, and 

 soft membranous stomach, swallowed the berries whole and unbroken, and 

 when they thawed the pips passed out of the body without having under- 

 gone any change by the process of digestion, and imparted no smell to the 

 flesh, the fruity portion alone being retained for the nourishment of the 

 bird. There was a considerable amount of orange-coloured fat on the bodies 



