Birds. 



8715 



vicinity, feeding in grass-fields or on open waste lands. In all 

 cases they have been in good condition, the internal parts ex- 

 hibiting signs of perfect health, and the crops in most cases filled 

 with green food; some few, however, have had empty crops, but their 

 gizzards (extremely muscular) filled with the debris of seeds and small 

 fragments of flint. No trace of animal or insect food has been found 

 in any of them, either in our eastern counties or in other parts of 

 England. Of the first female killed at Yarmouth, Captain Longe says, 

 " The gizzard contained an enormous quantity of small stones and 

 sand (some of the stones were nearly twice the size of mustard-seeds), 

 and weighed three-quarters of a dram." This I have found the case 

 in most of them myself, but in some much more sand than flints. 

 The contents of the crops (in one case filling two table-spoons) are 

 various, consisting, in the opinion of several local botanists, chiefly of 

 small yellow grass-seeds, mixed with the seeds and cases of Medi- 

 cago lupulina (black medick or nonsuch), Carex (sedge), Rumex 

 (dock), Stellaria and Cerastium (chickweed), and in some instances 

 .small sprigs of Sedum acre (biting stonecrop), so abundant on the 

 sand hills of our eastern coast. Those taken from one of the Yar- 

 mouth birds, being of six different kinds, have been sown in pots 

 under the care of Mr. Youell, at his nursery-grounds, and will thus, I 

 hope, decide satisfactorily the plants to which they belong. Mr. 

 Southwell, of Fakenham, who has most kindly placed his own notes 

 on this species at my disposal, has taken great pains to ascertain 

 accurately the plants on which such birds as have come under his 

 own personal observation had' been feeding. The following state- 

 ment was received by Mr. Southwell from no less an authority 

 than Mr. C. C. Babington, of Cambridge, after an examination of the 

 different seeds from the crop of one of the Holme specimens : — 

 "Most are the fruit and seeds of Arenaria, or rather Lepigonum 

 rubium, numbered 1 on the paper ; 2 is a seed of Polygonum ; 3, the 

 tip of a moss ; 4, seeds of another kind of Polygonum (they must have 

 been some time in the bird's crop, for they have commenced growing) ; 

 5. appear to be fruiting flowers of Poa j 6, I fancy belong to Sagina or 

 Arenaria, but I have not succeeded in naming them to my own satis- 

 faction. All these names are of course quite open to alteration, but I 

 quite think that they are correct." Besides the above, Mr. Southwell 

 has also distinguished the seeds of Lepigonum marinum, of which 

 there appear to have been none in the crop submitted to Mr. Babing- 

 ton ; and in a letter to myself he adds, "1 think we may conclude 

 that their food in this country consists entirely of the seeds of plants 



