120 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
of the commoner species of hawks, owls and gulls, so few records
have been made in the case of the generality of birds. Yet,
as already remarked, it is almost certain that all birds which
include indigestible matter in their normal food must, almost of
necessity, share the convenient habit of regurgitating such in-
digestible matter.
Missel Thrush.
Mr. W. H. Hudson describes, as though from personal observa-
tion, how these birds gorge upon yew berries. He says:—
"When a bird, with incredible greediness, has gorged to reple-
tion he flies down to a spot where there is a nice green turf and
disgorges, then, relieved, he goes back with a light heart to gorge
again, and then again. The result is that every patch or strip
of green turf among or near the trees is thickly sprinkled over
with little masses or blobs of disgorged fruit, bright pinky red
in colour, looking like strawberries scattered about the ground
and crushed by passing feet. In a single blob or pellet I have
counted as many as 23 whole berries, as bright red as when on
the tree, embedded in a mass of viscid pulp, mixed with many
of the dark green and poisonous stones of the half-digested
berries."7
Song Thrush.
The Rev. E. Adrian Woodruffe-Peacock, F.L.S., advises
collectors of chalcids to look for them in the nuts of hawthorn,
"or from the cleaned stones of the gizzard-regurgitated seeds left
by the song-thrushes at their drinking-places."8
Redbreast.
Miss G. Lister, F.L.S., tells me that she has watched a Robin
hop through an open garden doorway on to the carpet of a room
where cake-crumbs were scattered: it paused, and, before eating
the crumbs, was seen to eject a pellet. The pellet was globular,
about the size of a pea, and contained the "rings of a millipede."
Mr. Oldham records that ''remains of fruit (raspberries and
currants) were found in pellets ejected by a robin."9
Specimens of Robins' pellets are in the Essex Museum at
Stratford. Their contents were found to include a raspberry
seed, some fragmentary beetle remains, and grass fragments.
7 Nature in Downland, 1906, p. 228.
8 Naturalist, 1910, p. 329.
9 Quoted in Witherby's Practical Handbook of British Birds, 1920, p. 483.