Pie PE LLETS—EVIDENCE AS TO: FOOD OF BIRDS. 2347 
Dissection of the pellets shows remains of water beetles, 
bones of water vole, mole and other mammalian fur, claws of 
mole and the claw of a rat ? ; bones of birds are included. 
One of the Wanstead Park pellets is interesting from the 
fact that in it is embedded a portion of the sternum, with its 
characteristic spine, of the great water beetle (Hydrophilus 
piceus) which is raré in the district : another contains an elytron 
of the commoner aquatic beetle Dyticus marginals. 
PURPLE HERON. 
Mr. A. H. Patterson records that a young male bird of this 
species, on dissection, was found to contain in its stomach ‘‘a 
pellet of mouse hair, probably of the short-tailed species.’’®® 
COMMON BITTERN. 
It would appear that the Bittern shares the habit of pellet- 
casting, as observers have noted the presence in the stomach of 
Seeenard pellet of the fur of some animal,’’®9 and “ the fur of 
water rats and mice, rolled up in small, hard, oblong pellets.’’9° 
DOMESTIC GOOSE. 
Some presumed pellets of this bird from Kew Green and from 
Epping Forest, alike composed of plant-husks, are in the Essex 
Museum, as are also similar “ pellets’ obtained from the CHINESE 
GOOSE (Cycnopsis cycnoides) from an ornamental lake at Car- 
narvon, N. Wales. 
RiING-DOVE. 
The well-known falconer, Mr. J. T. Mann, of Bishop’s Stort- 
ford, records his surprise at observing that the Ring-dove ejects 
pellets. He says: ‘‘ When hawking in Cambridgeshire on Dec. 
15th, I went from the open land through a wood frequented 
(at that season) by hundreds of wood pigeons. Among their 
droppings I saw some oval-shaped ‘ castings,’ about an inch in 
length. Ihave noticed this in the shrikes, rooks, and swallows, 
but never in this form in the pigeon. JI am aware of the manner 
they feed their young, but I must say I was ignorant of the fact 
of pigeons ejecting castings such as I found composed of husks 
of barley and beech-nuts, grass, or clover, and small stones.’’% 
88 Nature in Eastern Norfolk, 1905, p. 171. 
89 Zoologist, 1864, p. 8961. 
go Zoologist, 1879, p. 115. 
91 Zoologist, 1887, p. 193. 
