REV. M. C. H. BIRD ON ACORNS. 
33 
deteriorated in value in consequence. Where the gale- 
stripped and rain-sodden Oak leaves laid on my cucumber 
frame for forty-eight hours at the most, I noticed that the 
white paint was distinctly tanned from the contact. There 
are still large patches of and roadside hereabouts that are 
dyed quite brown from the exuded tannin of squashed acorns, 
and probably many of you have observed the specially rich 
crimson lake colour this season of the divided lobes of split 
acorns which have been left on the ground and exposed to 
the air for several weeks. 
1893 and 1906 were good acorn years, but in neither 
instance were the fruit so plentiful or so fine as was the case 
last year. 
In 1906 I took no less than 67 small acorns from a pigeon’s 
crop, and envied its marvellous power of digestion. W T onder 
ful indeed are the capabilities of this voracious feeder for 
packing away food. I have filled an imperial pint measure 
from the well-shaken-up-contents of a pigeon’s crop, and that 
on two occasions; in one instance it consisted of swede 
tops, and in the other of young clover leaves. A few years 
ago pigeon diphtheria, or feather disease (I forget which), 
was attributed to a plethora of acorn diet. We may not have 
an opportunity of making observations as to the truth of 
this suggestion during the current winter, for although acorns 
are many, pigeons are few. The foreign flocks which usually 
arrive in Broadland ere the second week in January are as 
yet couspicuous by their absence, perhaps because the great 
acorn crop was not restricted to this country. 
Our stay-at-home birds, which have been constantly cooing 
for the past two months (and a few days ago, on Jan. 24th, 
I noticed one indulging in the peculiar love-flight which gives 
the bird its specific name — Columba, from the Greek word, to 
dive), must have found many acorns that would hardly pass 
even their very expansive mouth angles; but a rich harvest 
awaited the incoming rooks, the earliest birds which prey 
