THE GIZZARD 11 



zard. It is rounded and is slightly flattened on both 

 sides, like a watch-case, and is composed especially 

 in birds that live on grain of a very thick, fleshy 

 wall, lined on the inside with a kind of hard and tena- 

 cious leather which protects the organ from attri- 

 tion. Finally, it is to be noted that at the same time 

 the bird is swallowing grain it takes care also to 

 swallow a little gravel, some very small stones which, 

 away down in the gizzard, will perform the office of 

 teeth. " 



"I know what the gizzard is," volunteered Emile. 

 * ' When they are cleaning a chicken to cook, they take 

 out of the body something round that they split in 

 two with a knife ; then they throw away a thick skin 

 all wrinkled and stuffed with grains of sand, and the 

 rest is put back into the' chicken. ' ' 



' ' Yes, that is the gizzard, ' ' said Uncle Paul. ' ' Let 

 us complete these ideas got from cooking. The 

 bird, not having in its beak the molars necessary for 

 grinding, as in a mill, the seeds that are hard to 

 crush, supplies its gizzard with artificial teeth, which 

 are renewed at each repast ; that is to say, it swallows 

 little pebbles. The grain, softened in the crop and 

 moistened with the digestive juice during its pas- 

 sage through the succenturiate ventricle, reaches the 

 gizzard mixed with the little stopes that are to aid 

 the triturating action. The work then performed is 

 easy to understand. If you pressed in your palm 

 a handful of wheat mixed with gravel, and if your 

 fingers, by continual movement, made the two kinds 

 of particles rub vigorously against each other, is it 



