UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES AFIELD 127 



I one day picked up the body of a dead king- 

 fisher in a section near the Limberlost, which I 

 called Paradise 'Alley. Hunters were not allowed 

 there, and the region was devoted solely to my 

 work by its owner, who did all in his power to 

 keep even fishermen and boys playing during their 

 summer vacation out of the long wooded stretch 

 where I had the greatest number of nests located; 

 so I could not imagine what had happened to the 

 bird. I could find no broken bones, no marks on 

 its body, no displacement of plumage. It seemed 

 to have starved to death, as its body was emaciated, 

 so I took time to dissect it. I found that the 

 trouble had been caused in regurgitating the bones 

 of an unusually large fish. These birds swallow 

 whole fish, tossing them in air and catching them 

 headfirst so that they go down smoothly. The 

 coming up seemed to have been another matter, 

 with this bird at least, for a large sharp bone from 

 a back fin had turned crosswise in the food canal 

 near where it enters the crop, and was firmly im- 

 bedded in the flesh in such a way that the bird 

 could not regurgitate the indigestible parts nor 

 take other food. 



Owls swallow their food in the same way, taking 

 whatever prey they can whole, assimilating the 

 digestible parts and regurgitating bones, fur, and 

 feathers. Of course in the case of an owl, a hawk, 

 or an eagle carrying away prey too large to swallow 

 whole, that food is torn up and eaten in pieces. 



