BinD PELLETS—EVIDENCE AS TO FOOD OF BIRDS. I2I 
DIPPER. 
Mr. Bartlett, the then Superintendent of the Zoological 
Society’s Gardens, writing in 1878, has put on record that some 
six juvenile Dippers in the Gardens were so tame as to come 
regularly to be fed by hand; he noticed that they threw up 
pellets of the indigestible parts of. their insect food.'° 
GREAT GREY SHRIKE. 
A writer says of this bird :—‘‘ In summer it contents itself 
principally with insects (especially beetles and grasshoppers), 
small frogs, lizards, and blindworms. This is proved by an 
examination of the pellets which they cast up. In winter, on the 
contrary, these consist chiefly of the hair and bones of mice and 
the feathers of birds.’’™ 
Messrs. N. F. Ticehurst, M.B.O.U., and C. B. Ticehurst re- 
cord :—* Under the tree in which the nest was situated we 
picked up several pellets, which chiefly consisted of the remains 
of beetles and moths.”’? 
Mr. Howard Saunders adds his testimony: ‘‘ The food con- 
sists largely of lizards, mice, shrews, small or young birds, frogs 
and insects, especially beetles and grasshoppers ; the indigestible 
portions being thrown up in pellets.’’:3 
RED-BACKED SHRIKE. 
Mr. J. H. Owen has watched this bird cast pellets. He gives 
agraphic account : ‘‘ There are many parts of beetles, bees, blue- 
bottles, etc., which are impossible for a nestling to digest. These 
parts are thrown up in the form of pellets and are often of amazing 
$ize compared with the bird that throws them up. When the 
nestling is young it cannot eject such a pellet and the old bird 
has to lift it out of the gape. It then carries it away and drops 
it, usually after it has perched on one of its favourite alighting 
Spots.. both cock and hen . . . remove pellets. 
I have watched both old birds throw My Soe te like the 
young.’’+4 
Mr. T. Holme records : ‘‘ Their castings, formed of the elytra 
10 Quoted in Zoologist, 1878, 293. 
Ir Naumann, quoted in a ae s British Birds, 1883, p. 600. 
12 Zoologist, 1902, p. 272. 
13 British Birds, 1889, p. 140. 
14 British Birds, 1916-17, pp. 176 and 180, 
