8028 



Birds. 



dent grain-eating birds are insect-eaters too, and that a large proportion of them sub- 

 sist on insect food alone as long as they can obtain it? and when, we would ask, is 

 insect life so destructive as in spring and summer, when our fruit trees are blossoming 

 and the grain is young ? No sooner is the warmth of the sun felt, after months of 

 dreary winter, than the land teems with insect forms innumerable, which threaten, 

 unchecked, to destroy all vegetation ; but soon an all-wise Providence supplies the 

 needed antidote, in the gaping mouths of hundreds of unfledged nestlings waiting the 

 return of their untiring parents. The tender stomachs of these little creatures admit 

 of no less digestible food than insects, grubs and caterpillars, and these, in numbers 

 far beyond the powers of calculation, relieve their wants and save the farmers from 

 inevitable ruin. We are sorry to own that this abominable practice is only too com- 

 mon in our own county ; and whilst we feel it our duty thus to call attention to the 

 subject, we trust that those in authority, who are capable of judging of the inevitable 

 result, will bestir themselves to compel the ignorant and the thoughtless to desist from 

 the perpetration of an undoubted crime. — Norfolk Chronicle, May 5, 1862. 



Birds killed by flying against a Clock. — I have to record a circumstance in con- 

 nexion with the migration of birds which, I believe, is not common in this locality. 

 On Saturday morning, the 26th of April, a youth of the name of Rutter resorted to 

 St. Mary's Church, Devizes, to ring the six o'clock bell, and on arriving at the 

 building he discovered at the base of the tower from twenty to thirty small birds lying 

 on the ground quite dead. The plumage of all of them was in fine condition, but 

 some of the bills and heads were much damaged, apparently occasioned by a blow. 

 Birds of passage usually travel at night, and in the present instance it may fairly be 

 assumed that these little creatures were making their journey toward some favourite 

 spot selected for their summer residence (for birds return every year to their former 

 haunts), but coming in view of the illuminated clock on St. Mary's lower, they may 

 have dashed against it with such force that they fell to the gTound and were killed by 

 the coiicussion. Several instances are recorded in ornithological works of birds 

 coming to this country having dashed themselves against light-houses and other 

 buildings on the sea-coast, but I never remember to have seen an account of birds 

 having done so in inland towns, and I am unable to account for their having done 

 so in the present instance, except from the extreme darkness of the night, or probably 

 they hoped to escape a very heavy hail storm which occurred, which might have 

 happened at the time of their arrival in Devizes. I have been favoured with 

 a sight of three of the species so found, for which I am indebted to Mr. James 

 Handle, builder ■ these were the reed warbler {Sylvia arundinacea), the grasshopper 

 warbler (S. locustella) and the wryneck (Yunx torquilla); some numbers of the 

 latter species had been seen in Wiltshire, where they are known as " the cuckoo's 

 mate," nearly a fortnight. I regret to find that the lad Rutter set no value on the 

 birds, and that he gave about twenty of them to the cat: I am informed that several 

 of these differed considerably from those above named, and no doubt were of different 

 species. Mr. Grant, of this town, intends to preserve the four birds which have been 

 saved from the jaws of the voracious cat. — John James Fox; Devizes, May 8, 

 1862. 



