498 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
hungry, though fresh liver was taken promptly at such a time. Liver 
which was just beginning to spoil, if eaten, was not taken with the 
same greediness, and a smaller quantity was swallowed. ‘The first 
piece of tainted meat might be taken eagerly and sometimes partly 
swallowed, only to be rejected. One or more pieces might be swal- 
lowed in haste if the birds were exceedingly hungry, before signs of 
disgust appeared. Other pieces were handled-with care on the same 
occasion, if touched at all. Bread which had been soaked in water 
that had contained such food as fresh raw liver was eaten more 
eagerly than when plain water was used to moisten the bread. 
It was a common practice of my captive gulls to carry some of 
their food to their swimming tank, where they would play with it in 
the water. A piece of liver would be held in the beak and moved 
about under water with quick jerks of the head or dropped in the 
water to be seized before it had sunk far. This performance hap- 
pened more frequently when the food had been lying in a chemical 
solution or when it had accumulated considerable dirt as a conse- 
quence of having been dragged on the ground. Such rinsing of the 
food did not occur at every feeding, but was usual. The extent to 
which the food was thus treated also depended upon the degree of 
hunger. When very hungry, food was bolted in a few seconds 
without much playing with it except sometimes with the last piece 
taken if hunger had been satisfied by the amount of food placed 
before the birds. 
4. Other reactions.—It is generally known that birds have a 
special development of nerves and endings of general sensation 
about the mouth with large trigeminal nerves for the sense organs 
involved. It is consequently reasonable to expect that my gulls 
when suspiciously manipulating food of uncertain palatableness em- 
ploy their general sensation to a large extent. We do not know to 
how great an extent general sensation and the taste sense are used 
relatively by birds, but such information as is available indicates 
that the former plays the larger part. It has been shown by 
Botezat! for the birds which he studied that taste endings occur 
only in the back part of the mouth cavity and especially at the en- 
trance to the gullet. In some birds they were also found at the, 
base of the tongue, but they were never numerous. 
On the preceding page I describe the behavior of one of my 
gulls when it started to eat liver which had been lying in solutions 
of table salt for a few moments. The piece of liver was manipulated 
in the front part of the mouth at the tip of the beak by the apparently 
suspicious bird. No avoiding reactions resulted and the food was 
often swallowed. Such a result suggests that the region of the 
1 Botezat, E., Die Nervenendapparate in den Mundteilen der Végel und die einheitliche Endigungsweise 
der peripheren Nerven beiden Wirbeltieren; Zeitschr, {, wiss. Zool, Bd. 84, 1906, s. 205-360. 
