3i S Reaumur's Experiments. [Book !}. 



iron, fevcn lines in length and two in diameter, clofec! 

 v/ich folder at each end. Some of thefe were indented 

 by the action of the gizzard, and others crufhed quite 

 flat. Similar tubes, placed between the teeth of a 

 vice, required a force of four hundred and thirty-fix 

 pounds ?.nd a half to produce the fame effects. 



Inclcfing in tin tubes, properly perforated, fomc 

 grains of barley, fome unboiled, fome boiled, and 

 ethers peeled, and letting them remain- a day or two 

 in the iiomach, he found them only a little fwelled. 

 The fame experiment being tried with rneal, the 

 fame confequences were obferved, as it did not 

 'become in the fmalleft degree putrid. From thefe 

 experiments Reaumur concluded, that digeftion, in 

 birds provided with a gizzard, was chiefly performed 

 by means of trituration. 



Such are the powers of the gizzard ; but thofe of 

 the membranous flomach, though of a very different 

 nature, are not lefs aftonifhing. It is well known that 

 birds of prey, which fwallow every part of the animal 

 they devour without much diftinction, have the power 

 of throwing up luch parts of their food as they can- 

 not digeir. Taking advantage of this circumftance, 

 the fame naturalift, gave tubes, fimilar to thofe above 

 mentioned, and rilled with flem, to a buzzard hawk ; 

 in twenty- four hours the tubes being thrown up, the 

 meat which they contained was reduced to an oily 

 pulp, and with no appearance of putridity. At the 

 end of forty-eight hours, the decompofition was ftill 

 more perfect, the pulp was more attenuated and 

 blanched, and that conftantly without any fmell. The 

 tubes being filled with the bones of young pigeons, 

 inftead of butcher's meat, thefe were converted into a 

 jelly in twenty-four hours. Beef bones, very hard, 

 and deprived both of flefh and marrow, out of forty 



