BIRD PELLETS—EVIDENCE AS TO FOOD OF BIRDS. 121
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.10
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."11
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."12
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."13
Red-Backed Shrike.
Mr. J. H. Owen has watched this bird cast pellets. He gives
a graphic 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
size 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 up pellets just like the
young."14
Mr. T. Holme records: "Their castings, formed of the elytra
10 Quoted in Zoologist, 1878, p. 293.
11 Naumann, quoted in Seebohm'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.