138 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



both exhibited the Bullfinch's red breast, but had the Linnet's 

 back. 



Food op the Quail. 

 The Rev. M. C. Bird has made an experiment with seeds 

 taken from the crops of two Quails shot last November, men- 

 tioned in his notes at the time (Zool. 1902, p. 94). He 

 planted the seeds, and from them reared over fifty plants of the 

 corn-spurrey (Spergula arvensis), besides which he found that 

 there were seeds of the white goosefoot, a little wild poppy, 

 about six seeds of the dock, and a labiate or two. This is a 

 very good way of testing what graminivorous birds eat. William 

 Thompson found about 3500 seeds of the pernicious chickweed 

 (Stellaria media) in the crop of one Quail killed in Ireland ; very 

 few of these would have germinated after being eaten, and this is 

 an instance of what good such birds can do. It is a pity that the 

 attempts to increase the number of Quails in Norfolk by turning 

 down have ended in failure ; four hundred released by the King's 

 orders at Sandringham, and two hundred on Holt " lows," soon 

 all disappeared. 



