66 



Notes mid Commenis, 



made against the birds by horticultural] sts and others, this 

 record of fads should be carefully perused. As the report 

 points out, there are, on this subject, two points requiring 

 special investigation. ' It is necessary to examine and tabulate 

 the contents of the crops of certain birds in each month of the 

 year, so that an opinion may be formed of the benefits or 

 injuries caused by birds at all seasons. Secondly, it is necessary 

 that some estimate should be made of the available food in 

 the district where the birds were feeding when killed, in order 

 that it may be decided w^hether the food discovered in the 

 crops w'ere selected from choice or from necessity.' 



A THOUSAND CHESTER RECORDS. 



In his introductory remarks, Mr. Newstead points out that 

 the records of the materials upon which the memoir has been 

 largely built are based upon 871 post-mortem examinations 

 of the stomach contents, and the ' pellets ' or ' castings ' of 

 128 species of British birds. In the case of the Starling and a 

 few other birds, these have been supplemented by a number of 

 definite observations made in the field, bringing the total to 

 considerably over iioo records. From an entomological 

 standpoint these are probably the most extensive yet com- 

 piled in this country, and as such, form a valuable contribution 

 to our knowledge of the food of British birds, especially in 

 relation to agriculture and horticulture. The majority of the 

 material examined was collected in Cheshire, and as the con- 

 ditions there are probably similar to those obtaining in other 

 areas, it can be safely said that the records demonstrate the 

 important part played by the majority of our British birds in 

 checking the increase and lessening the ravages of garden and 

 field pests. 



NEW BOTANICAL FINDS. 



Probably as an indirect result of the trio of new British 

 plant lists, which were noticed at some length in our last volume, 

 botanists in the north and centre of England appear to have had 

 a ' fillip.' Not only has Selinum carvifolia been turned up in 

 Nottinghamshire, but a new British Broomrape (Orobanche 

 procera Koch,) in West Yorks., and the larger chestnut-brown 

 seeded Water-Blinks (with free flow^ers) in Merionethshire and 

 elsewhere ; and Mr. Clement Reid led to this b}" detecting both 

 sorts of seeds, shining and dull black, in the lacustrine leaf-bed 

 deposits ! 



Naturalist, 



