BIRD PELLETS—EVIDENCE AS TO FOOD OF BIRDS. 123
magpie's nest, composed almost entirely of the elytra of small
beetles.22
Jackdaw.
Specimens of castings of this bird are in the Essex Museum,
and consist of plant-fibres, oat-husks and grass-stems.
Raven.
Mr. George Bolam gives an interesting account of his dis-
section of pellets of the Raven, which I quote in full. He says:
"With a view to obtaining accurate data upon the food of the Raven. 
I took the trouble to examine closely a considerable number of the pellets,
by which these birds, like their relatives, get rid of the indigestible portions
of their food. These were picked up, from time to time, beneath roosting
or nesting places, and besides showing how little comes amiss to such birds
as food, and the manner in which it varies with the season of the year, give
some indication of the distances that are daily travelled for it. The sea is
roughly about twenty miles from Llanuwchllyn [Merioneth] yet at all seasons
some pellets showed traces of food obtained on the shore. Of this, fragments
of the shells of mussels, and crabs, were the most frequent, with occasional
bits of clam and other shell fish. Bones of fish, bits of sea-weed, etc., also
commonly occurred, as well as round, water-worn pebbles, that were, no
doubt, from the sea-beach. More frequently, however, any stones found in
the pellets consisted of bits of glassy quartz, such as might be picked up
about the mountain tops. These must either be swallowed inadvertently,
sticking to other food, or (as I think more probable) from the same curiosity as
prompts a tame bird to steal any glittering object. Grass, leaves of trees and
similar vegetable matter are, no doubt, taken adhering to other food. In
summer skulls of voles, mice and rats were very numerous, particularly the
first named, these animals being, no doubt, captured upon the hills. Moles,
too, were frequent, about equally so throughout the year, many of them, also,
doubtless the result of independent capture, though others, perhaps, may
have been killed in traps and flung aside. Fur and bones of rabbits were
fairly numerous at all seasons, as was also the wool of sheep, and sometimes
the hair of cattle and dogs; but what interested me most was the infre-
quency with which egg-shells, feathers, or other remains of birds, occurred.
Of egg-shells I could never, save once, detect a single trace, and of the pellets
examined not above ten per cent. contained any bird remains, at any season,
while they were always most frequent in winter. Grouse feathers were natur-
ally the most prevalent, since that was the most likely bird to be found
dead, or wounded, about the moors: immature Starlings were almost the
only other bird identified, and occurred most often in autumn (? from the
capture of young birds, when crossing the moors, or from the picking up of
the remains of hawks' meals), once or twice a few feathers of duck, or sea-
fowl, were noticed, and twice the skull of a small finch. During summer
numbers of beetle wing-cases were nearly always present; and that no fewer
than thirty-one of the pellets, details of which are given below, picked up in the
depth of winter, when beetles are largely hidden from view, should have con-
tained such remains, seems to point to those insects forming a more favourite
22 Zoologist, 1864, p. 8953.