122
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
and other hard parts of Coleoptera, are found in abundance about
their haunts."15
Examples of pellets of the Red-backed Shrike are in the
Essex Museum collection at Stratford: they contain remains
of ground beetles (Pterostichus, sp. and Harpalus, sp.).
Spotted Flycatcher.
Pellets were found under a nest of this bird in Regent's Park,16
and were likened to "blue pills." Mr. E. W. Harcourt records
that, while watching a Spotted Flycatcher, he noticed that it
looked somewhat uncomfortable, with its feathers ruffled and
its neck extended. "In a minute or two it rejected from its
mouth a pellet about the size of a horsebean, and then hopped
away apparently much relieved. Upon my picking up the
pellet I found it to be composed of a mass of beetles' wings and
other entomological curiosities.17
Swallow.
Yarrell states that this bird shares the habit of throwing up
pellets.'8
House Martin.
Seebohm tells us: "The food of the Martin is composed en-
tirely of insects; and the refuse of this food, such as wing-cases,
etc., is cast up in the form of pellets."19
Chough.
Mr. George Bolam, in his "Wild Life in Wales,"20 remarks:
"A person who claimed to have a special acquaintance with the
bird in North Wales informed me that he could recognise
almost with certainty a cliff inhabited by Choughs from the
castings left about the top of the rock, and which, he said, always
contained numerous fragments of beetles."
An observer, writing in the Zoologist, states: "Castings
lying on the ground showed that the birds had been eating barley
already."21
Magpie.
Mr. C. J. Cox, in 1864, found numerous castings under a
15 Zoologist, 1845, p. 1136.
16 Zoologist, 1876, p. 5042.
17 Ibid, 1889, p. 265.
18 Yarrell, 4th edn., 1., p. 59.
19 History of British Birds, 1884, p. 183.
20 Wild Life in Wales, 1913, p. 193.
21 Zoologist, 1910, p. 48.