14 OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



which is done without difficulty, and thus it was easy 

 to scrutinize it as closely as I wished. Well, after 

 all my pains I found it perfectly intact, without a 

 tear or cut, without even the slightest scratch. The 

 skin appeared to me absolutely the same as that of 

 the cocks that had not swallowed glass.' " 



"So the bird that is made to swallow pieces of 

 broken glass, " said Jules, " grinds them up without 

 injury and without even a scratch, while we could 

 not so much as handle this dangerous stuff with the 

 tips of our fingers without wounding ourselves. 

 This power of the gizzard is really inconceivable." 



"What follows is still more surprising, " resumed 

 Uncle Paul. "Spallanzani continues: 'The experi- 

 ments with glass not having done the birds any harm, 

 I performed two others that were much more dan- 

 gerous. In a leaden ball I placed twelve large steel 

 needles so that they stuck out of the ball more than 

 half a centimeter, and I made a turkey swallow this 

 ball, bristling with points and wrapped in a card ; and 

 it kept the ball in its stomach a day and a half. Dur- 

 ing this time the bird showed not the slightest dis- 

 comfort, and in fact there could have been none, for 

 on killing the bird I found that its stomach had not 

 received the slightest wound from this barbarous de- 

 vice. All the needles were broken off and separated 

 from the leaden ball, two of them being still in the 

 gizzard, their points greatly blunted, while the other 

 ten had disappeared, ejected with the excrement. 



" 'Finally, I fixed in a leaden ball twelve little 

 steel lancets, very sharp and cutting, and I made 



