BIRDS TAKING RUBBER ARTICLES. 27
the Rooks' nesting trees she had found, on May 4, 1930, rubber
bands from bottles, flat bands used in offices, portions of a toy-
balloon, a piece of a bicycle tyre, and an inch of rubber used for
mending punctures. This writer makes this clear statement:
"The articles are not found in connection with the food-pellets,
"so there is no evidence that they have been swallowed by the
"birds." The keeper had reported that the objects were some-
times so numerous that he could easily gather a quart of them.
The evidence showed that this practice had been in existence for
over twenty years. The rubber was stated to come chiefly from
a sewage-farm some miles away.
To this point the evidence deals only with the Rook, but
Messrs. G. C. S. Ingram and H. M. Salmon, writing in 1937,
introduce further species. The attention of these observers
was first drawn to this question about twelve years previously
by the foreman at Llanishen Reservoir, Glam., who referred to
the number of rubber articles he had found there in pellets ejected
by gulls. Although they had made regular weekly visits since,
two instances only came to their notice. On September 19,
1935, they were present when an Arctic Tern, shot in Monmouth-
shire on the previous day, was being skinned and a small red
rubber ring about an inch in diameter was found in the gizzard.
Two days later another Arctic Tern was found dead at the same
place, and two brown rubber rings, also about an inch in diameter,
were removed from the gizzard. Rubber rings were often seen
floating at a sewer-outfall near the locality where the Terns were
obtained and "it seems not unreasonable to suggest that Terns
"mistook the rings for food." A recent visit to a Starling roost
near St. Fagans, Glam., is then described. The ground under the
Spruce trees was covered with the accumulated droppings to a
depth of about two inches, and protruding from this mass were
innumerable elastic rubber bands. These were of different sizes,
from small capsule bands up to stationery bands three inches
long and a quarter of an inch wide. The colours are given as
red, brown, white, yellow, grey and blue, but no green bands
were noticed. The authors argue that it is probable that these
bands must have been swallowed by the Starlings and ejected
from the crop with other indigestible parts of their food. There
was no evidence that the rubber had passed through the birds.
The note concludes with this expression of opinion "it is more