NOTES AND QUERIES. 391 



to me very much like a snail. In order to be quite certain I immedi- 

 ately went downstairs, and, on opening the front door, the bird flew 

 away, leaving ou the ground the broken and partly consumed snail. 

 Was this bird driven to depart from its usual fare during this excep- 

 tionally hot and dry summer ? was a question that immediately occurred 

 to me, for Blackbirds were already attacking the apples which had fallen 

 to the ground (a fruit they rarely touch), and had commenced an attack 

 on the fruit still hanging to such an extent that they had become a 

 pest, and a little powder and shot had to be resorted to in order to thin 

 out their numbers. Determined to continue my investigations, I con^ 

 suited a few of my many gardening friends — one of them an ardent 

 and most careful observer — but, alas ! not one of them could give me a 

 definite reply in regard to the Blackbird, though they were all quite 

 certain that the Thrush ate snails. Summing up the somewhat 

 meagre evidence before me, and taking into consideration the isolated 

 case just submitted, my answer to Mr. Meiklejohn's question must be 

 adjourned sine die ; but I would like to make the following observa- 

 tions : — (1) that in my humble opinion there is no hard and fast rule 

 in regard to the diet of the Blackbird ; (2) that they do eat snails is, 

 and must be generally admitted, though only to a small extent com- 

 pared to the Thrush ; (3) probably they confine themselves more to the 

 smaller species, such as Helix nemoralis and H. Jiortmsis. I quote the 

 following from Smith's 'Birds of Somersetshire,' p. 68, on the feeding 

 of the Blackbird : — January : seeds, spiders, and chrysalids. February: 

 the same. March : worms, buds of trees, and grubs. April : insects, 

 worms, and grubs. May : cockchafers and worms. June : worms, 

 grubs, and fruit. July : all sorts of insects, worms, and fruit. August : 

 the same. September : the same. October : worms, chrysalids, and 

 grubs of butterflies. November : seeds, corn, and chrysalids. Decem- 

 ber : the same. (The author quotes the above from a paper which 

 appeared in ' The Zoologist ' for the year 1863 (p. 8760) on the " Food 

 of Small Birds.") It will be seen that this formidable menu does not 

 contain the snail, though Mr. Cecil Smith goes on to say that during 

 the dry summer of 1868 both Blackbirds and Thrushes have been 

 most busily employed in devouring snails, which bears out my con- 

 tention, but the inclusion of buds of trees in the above list I think 

 is an error. — P. F. Bunyard (57, Kidderminster Boad, Croydon, 

 Surrey). 



Variety of Common Wren (Troglodytes parvulus). — On June 13th 

 of this year, when wandering along a green lane near Elstree, in Hert- 

 fordshire, I met with a cream-coloured variety of the Common Wren. 



