STONES SWALLOWED BY BIRDS. 503 



fiaine of odoriferous earths (tierras olorosas), have an odour 

 agreeable to women.* Brown relates, in his History of 

 Jamaica, that the crocodiles of South America swallow 

 small stones and pieces of very hard wood, when the lakes 

 which they inhabit are dry, or when they are in want of 

 food. M. Bonpland and I observed in a crocodile, eleven 

 feet long, which we dissected at Batallez, on the banks of 

 the Bio Magdalena, that the stomach of this reptile con- 

 tained half-digested fish, and rounded fragments of granite 

 three or four inches in diameter. It is difficult to admit 

 that the crocodiles swallow these stony masses accidentally, 

 for they do not catch fish with their lower jaw resting on 

 the ground at the bottom of the river. The Indians have 

 framed the absurd hypothesis that these indolent animals 

 like to augment their weight, that they may have less 

 trouble in diving. I rather think that they load their 

 stomach with large pebbles, to excite an abundant secre- 

 tion of the gastric juice. The experiments of Majendie 

 render this explanation extremely probable. "With respect 

 to the habit of the granivorous birds, particularly the galli- 

 nacea3 and ostriches, of swallowing sand and small pebbles, 

 it has been hitherto attributed to an instinctive desire of 

 accelerating the trituration of the aliments in a muscular 

 and thick stomach. 



We have mentioned, that tribes of Negroes on the 

 Gambia mingle clay with their rice. Some families of Otto- 

 macs were perhaps formerly accustomed to cause the maize 

 and other farinaceous seeds to rot in their poya, in order to 

 eat earth and amylaceous matter together : possibly it was a 

 preparation of this kind, that Father Gumilla described in- 

 distinctly in the first volume of his work, when he affirms, 

 " that the Guamos and the Ottomacs feed upon earth only 

 because it is impregnated with the sustancia del maiz, (sub- 

 stance of maize) and the fat of the cayman." I have already 

 observed that neither the present missionary of Uruana, nor 

 Pray Juan Gonzales, who lived long in those countries, knew 

 anything of this mixture of animal and vegetable substances 



* Bttcaro (vas fictile odoriferum). People are fond of drinking out of 

 these vessels on account of the smell of the clay. The women of the 

 province of Alentejo acquire a habit of masticating the bucaro earth ; ai d 

 feel a great privation when they cannot indulge this vitiated taste. 



