Pies rELLETS——-EVIDENCE AS TO’ FOOD OF BIRDS. 127 
on the banks of the Thames, and these were so fragile as to require 
the infiltration of colloid matter to prevent their crumbling. 
One such pellet is in the Essex Museum at Stratford, and consists 
exclusively of fish-bones and scales. 
HALCYON VAGANS. 
This New Zealand kingfisher throws pellets. Mr. T. H. 
Potts, F.L.S., collected specimens of the castings and deposited 
them in a local museum.3+ 
HALCYON FUSCICAPILLA. 
An examination of the nesting hole of this South African 
species of kingfisher, in a river-bank, showed it to contain 
“pellets of fish and insect bones.’’35 
BELTED KINGFISHER. 
Seebohm is the authority for the statement that this bird 
casts pellets, which often occur in great numbers in its nest- 
hole. The food comprises small fish, crabs, lizards, and also 
mice.3® 
BEE-EATER. 
Seebohm visited a breeding-colony of Bee-eaters on the 
Danube banks and records that he found a half-dozen castings 
made up of beetles’ elytra on a favourite perching-place, and 
decomposed castings in old nests which he dug out. The food 
seemed to be exclusively insects, ‘‘ especially bees, wasps, locusts, 
and beetles.’’37 
[At the reading of the paper, Mr. W. E. Glegg, F.Z.5S., stated 
that a Bee-eater had been seen to eject through the mouth the 
Temains of a beetle. | 
CUCKOO. 
Seebohm says of this bird : “‘ The food of the Cuckoo consists 
principally of beetles, butterflies, moths and other insects, with 
their larve. It is extremely fond of caterpillars, and especially 
those that are covered with hairs. Vegetable fibres and blades 
of grass have been occasionally found in its stomach, which 
is often packed full of the hairs from caterpillars and other insect- 
34 Zoologist, 1875, p. ee 
35 Zoologist, 1875, p. 
36 History of British Birds, 1884, p. 350. 
37 History of British Birds, 18845 p. 322. 
