28 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
"than likely that rubber bands, etc., are picked up and pouched
"in mistake for food."
Mr. K. B. Rooke records that he found two red rubber
stationery bands in the gizzard of a Puffin which he found dead
on the shore near Bournemouth in December, 1936. Each band
was about one and a half inches in length. While Mr. Rooke
agreed that it was not unreasonable to suppose that the birds
mistake the bands for food, yet he also suggests that the bands
might be picked up indirectly from their "food-animals,"
especially in the case of fish-eating species. He quotes reliable
evidence of fish having been recovered with similar rings around
their bodies.
I now come to my own experiences. During the past three
years I have visited regularly Littleton Reservoir, Middlesex,
and have noticed a large assortment of rubber articles either
floating in the water or lying on the concrete just above. The most
likely explanation of the presence of these articles is that they
were primped in from the Thames. I have also seen, however,
rubber washers and rings in such positions that I was convinced
they had been deposited by birds. At a meeting of the Club on
October 30th, 1937, I exhibited an extraordinary pellet found
at this reservoir on October 26, 1937. It contained the following
rubber objects:—A washer, diam, 27 mm. x 3 mm. thick, a ring,
diam. 39 mm. x 5 mm. x 3mm., and a complete baby's "dummy"
or comforter, length 46 mm., width 16 mm., diam, of guard 39 mm.
As to the colours, the washer was red, the ring grey, the nipple
of the comforter was red, and the remainder horn-colour. The
constituent parts of the pellet were matted together by feathers.
I cannot prove that this pellet was cast by a Carrion-Crow—it
may have been one of several other species—but my knowledge
of the locality suggests that it is most likely.
CONSIDERATION.
Six species—although we are not certain as to the specific
identification of the Gulls and the Carrion-Crow—have been
shown to participate in this habit. The evidence is to the effect
that the articles had been swallowed by four of the six birds, for
we have not exact knowledge in the case of the Gulls, and in that
of the Starling the evidence is presumptive. In regard to the
Rook there is to some extent conflict. From the reports of Miss