HOW BABY BIRDS ARE FED. 5) 
How can the little things eat hard seeds and bones 
before they have any teeth? Does it make you smile 
and wonder when we speak of baby birds cutting their 
teeth? Don’t you suppose birds have teeth? Of course 
they have. 
Every bird has a set of false teeth working out of 
sight. Birds never have the toothache, and they do 
not have to be brave and hold still while somebody 
pulls their teeth out. They can have a new set of teeth 
as often as they need them, without paying a good 
price to the dentist. 
Look along the path and you will see these teeth, 
lying as thick as hail in some places. Little sharp 
stones, coarse gravel, and fine sand,—these are the 
bird’s teeth. When a bird picks them up, he swallows 
them, and they go, without any trouble, right where 
they belong, down to a kind of pouch or pocket called 
the gizzard. This pocket is lined with very tough 
muscles. These muscles or rings look something like 
a fluting-iron or washboard, and as they move they set 
the teeth or little stones to rolling against the food in 
such a way that it is soon ground into bits, or rather 
into paste. 
It takes a baby bird a long time to learn to pick up 
anything with its bill. It will peck and peck at the 
food without being able to touch it, as we have seen 
many birds do when brought up in a cage, and as the 
little mocking-birds do at the garden table. 
Once we had some pet orioles, and before we noticed 
