One evening, some summers’ ago, I was sitting with a friend in his garden, when, during a pause in the conversation, our attention was attracted by a slight tap-tap, several times repeated— We quietly rose from our seats & stepped to some bushes, from amidst which the sound proceeded— On peering between the branches we saw a bird holding in its beak the shell of a common garden snail which it was tapping with some force against a flat stone lying on the ground— After a time the shell broke into several pieces & the bird then extracted the snail with its beak. The ground for some distance around the stone was covered with numerous fragments of snails’ shells & the conclusion was naturally drawn that the bird had been in the habit of resorting to this particular stone for the purpose of aiding it in breaking the shells of the snails on which it fed—

W^m Turner