MEANS OF DISPERSAL. l6l 



of which It was very fond — before eating them. But 

 this habit is by no means common to all birds ; some 

 kinds are actually known to swallow living snails, and 

 Mr. Cordeaux has favoured me with his opinion that in 

 all probability the creatures frequently keep alive for 

 some little time after being swallowed ; and on this 

 point, fortunately, an observation of much interest has 

 been recorded, the accuracy of which, Mr. Roberts, of 

 Lofthouse, assures me, cannot be doubted. In Septem- 

 ber, 1875, il^ appears, Mr. John Ward, carpenter and 

 bird-stuffer, of Lofthouse, took thirteen wrinkled-snails 

 {Helix caperatd), together with a quantity of tares, from 

 the stomach of a wood pigeon which had been shot 

 three days previously. Most of the snails were alive, 

 and " began creeping about on being placed in a 

 dish containing a little water." ^ It may be mentioned, 

 as a somewhat analogous case, that Mr. Abel Chap- 

 man has frequently shot curlews stuffed with live 

 cockles, which, as he remarks, might easily have been 

 scattered if the birds had chanced to have been 

 killed and carried off by peregrines or other birds of 

 prey. Molluscs thus remaining alive in birds' crops, 



^ Mr. Roberts informed me of this fact, without comment, in 

 1890, but recently, after drafting this chapter, I was much pleased 

 to find that when recording it, in 1882, he had suggested that 

 molluscs might possibly be " carried in the crops of birds con- 

 siderable distances, and thus be distributed and established in 

 new districts, or on islands, as the living shells might be ejected 

 from the crop, or the birds might be killed by birds of prey and 

 the contents of the stomach dislodged and scattered." — " Topo- 

 graphy and Nat. Hist, of Lofthouse," 1882, p. 333. 



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