Note 1 — Chapter II

Many birds are accustomed to eject the indigestible portions of their food—bones, fur, feathers, etc., or the shells and shards of crustaceans and insects—in the form of balls or pellets, which are, indeed, very interesting objects, and both scientifically and as not leading to the extermination of the species, would make a far preferable collection to one of birds’ eggs. Let anyone who doubts this pick up upon some gull-haunted island a score or so of the curious little globes made of fragments of crab-shells cemented together, which lie all about, or some of the dried frog-pellets of owls, over a marsh. He must then—or he ought to—confess that such objects are more curious, if less pretty, than birds’ eggs—which, however, as ornaments, nobody values in the least—whilst by their very nature they teach us something in regard to the habits of each species, which the latter do not. The pellets of rooks, for instance, which I have found by the hundred, composed, some entirely of innutritious vegetable materials, and others (almost entirely) of earth, are most instructive from this point of view. In fact, the results and tendencies springing out of this kind of collecting would be wholly advantageous both to birds and to natural history; so that one of the most useful things that could be started in these “killing times” would be a club or fraternity of such collectors.