IMI.] THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. 45 



14. Birds have their internal parts different from each 

 other and from other animals ; for some have before the 

 stomach a crop, as the domestic fowl, pigeon, dove, and 

 partridge. The crop is a large and hollow skin, into which 

 the food is received before it is digested. Hence from the 

 oesophagus it is narrower, then wider, and where it descends 

 into the stomach it is smaller. 



15. In most birds the stomach is fleshy and thick, and on 

 the outside there is a strong skin, which is separated from 

 the fleshy part. Some birds have no crop, but instead of 

 it a wide oesophagus, either wholly so, or in the part extend- 

 ing to the stomach, as in the coloeus, 1 raven, and crow. 

 The quail has the lower part of the oesophagus broad, the 

 segocephalus has it small but wider, and so has the owl. 

 But the duck, goose, gull, diver, and bustard, have a wide 

 and broad cesophagus, and so have many other birds. 



16. And some have a part of the stomach itself like a 

 crop, as the cenchreis ; 2 and there are some which have 

 neither oesophagus nor a \vide crop, but a large stomach ; 

 these are small birds like the swallow, and the sparrow. 

 A few have neither a crop, nor a wide oesophagus, but a 

 very long one ; these are birds with a long neck, as the por- 

 phyrion. 3 Almost all these emit a moister excrement than 

 other birds. 



17. The quail has these peculiarities, for it has a crop, and 

 before the stomach a wide and broad cesophagus. And the 

 crop is at a great distance from the part of the oesophagus 

 before the belly, considering the size of the bird. Birds 

 have generally a small intestine, which is single when un- 

 folded, and birds have appendages, a few, as I have said, and 

 not placed above, as in fish, but below, near the end of the 

 intestine. Some birds have not these appendages, though 

 they generally have them, as the domestic fowl, partridge, 

 duck, night-raven, 4 localus, 5 ascalaphus, 6 goose, bustard, 

 owl. Some of the small birds have them, but they are very 

 minute, as the sparrow. 



1 Three kinds of birds are called by this name. Corvus graculue, 

 C. rnonedula, and Pelicanus graculus. 2 Falco tinnunculua. 



3 Fulica porphyrion. * Ardea nycticorax. 5 Some kind of heron. 

 6 Some kind of owl. 



