BIRD PELLETS—EVIDENCE AS TO FOOD OF BIRDS. 127
on the banks of the Thames, and these were so fragile as to require
the infiltration of colloid matter to prevent their crumbling.
One such pellet is in the Essex Museum at Stratford, and consists
exclusively of fish-bones and scales.
Halcyon Vagans.
This New Zealand kingfisher throws pellets. Mr. T. H.
Potts, F.L.S., collected specimens of the castings and deposited
them in a local museum.34
Halcyon Fuscicapilla.
An examination of the nesting hole of this South African
species of kingfisher, in a river-bank, showed it to contain
"pellets of fish and insect bones."35
Belted Kingfisher.
Seebohm is the authority for the statement that this bird
casts pellets, which often occur in great numbers in its nest-
hole. The food comprises small fish, crabs, lizards, and also
mice.36
Bee-Eater.
Seebohm visited a breeding-colony of Bee-eaters on the
Danube banks and records that he found a half-dozen castings
made up of beetles' elytra on a favourite perching-place, and
decomposed castings in old nests which he dug out. The food
seemed to be exclusively insects, "especially bees, wasps, locusts,
and beetles."37
[At the reading of the paper, Mr. W. E. Glegg, F.Z.S., stated
that a Bee-eater had been seen to eject through the mouth the
remains of a beetle.]
Cuckoo.
Seebohm says of this bird: "The food of the Cuckoo consists
principally of beetles, butterflies, moths and other insects, with
their larvae. It is extremely fond of caterpillars, and especially
those that are covered with hairs. Vegetable fibres and blades
of grass have been occasionally found in its stomach, which
is often packed full of the hairs from caterpillars and other insect-
34 Zoologist, 1875, p. 4477.
35 Zoologist, 1875, p. 4474.
36 History of British Birds, 1884, p. 350.
37 History of British Birds, 1884, p. 322.