6o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



I recognized my particular favorite, with unerring aim. On my re- 

 monstrating with him, he said they were fig-peckers and destroyed the 

 fruit. I laughed at him, and, to convince him that he was wrong, 

 took out my pocket-knife and cut open one of the dead birds. It was 

 his turn to laugh, for the maw of the bird was distended to the full 

 with the soft, seedy fig-pulp ! The green woodpecker, whose whole 

 structure should make it a first-class insect-eater, is very fond of 

 service-berries, and is, according to Pallas, destructive to the grapes 

 around Astrakhan. Another woodpecker is fond of hazel nuts, and 

 has learned how to crack them ; but it may be that it was first intro- 

 duced to this sort of food by exploring the nuts for worms. In fact, 

 there is great room for the development of individual tastes in birds. 

 But there are limitations in the matter, and the maxim " What is one 

 man's meat is another's poison" applies well in this case. House- 

 doves can eat beans without harm, but geese after partaking of them 

 sicken and sometimes die. The cause of the difference is mechanical. 

 The doves grind up the beans in their crop, while the geese have to 

 digest them, and are sickened or killed by the swelling they undergo 

 in the process. A real physiological puzzle is presented, however, in 

 the case of some chemically acting poisons which a few animals, in- 

 cluding some birds, can partake of with impunity, while they are 

 deadly to all other creatures. 



The birds' work is not always done when they have captured their 

 food. Sometimes they have to prepare it to a certain extent. Many 

 of the smaller birds of prey pluck their game before eating it. Others 

 wash their meat, as I once saw a stork do ; and while this queer bird 

 would swallow frogs without any ceremony, it gave the mice that 

 were thrown to it a thorough soaking, probably because their hairi- 

 ness interfered with the comfortable swallowing of them. A saga- 

 cious canary-bird I once knew had learned the art of soaking in its 

 drinking-vessel the crumbs that were too hard for its bill to break 

 up. Shell-fish give birds much trouble, but the heron proves itself a 

 match for them by swallowing them whole, shells and all, and keep- 

 ing them in its maw till the animals are killed by the pressing in of 

 the digestive fluids, and the shells open ; then it spits them up and 

 feasts upon the soft parts. Crows carry them up into the air and 

 drop them upon stones, whereby the shells are broken up. The 1am- 

 mergeyer, according to Kriiger's observations, does the same with 

 marrow-bones and turtles ; and it is possible that the eagle that killed 

 Thales by dropping a tortoise upon him, mistook the shiny skull of 

 the philosopher for a big, extra hard stone ! 



Storing up of food is quite a common practice in the bird-world. 

 A European species of nut-hatch collects hazel-nuts when they are 

 abundant, and hides them in the hollows of trees ; and the snow-hen 

 of Greenland does something of the same kind. The pine nut-cracker 

 collects vetches, and the common nut-hatch, which appears frivolous 



