APPENDIX F 99 



1908 Weight in ozs. 



Sept. 29 15 j Three small grits were passed. 



30 14^ Seven small grits were passed. 



Oct. 1 15 \ Two small grits were passed. Gave red cranberries, 



a numbered quantity, which were not eaten, with 

 the dari, rice, heather, and blaeberry plants. 

 2 15 Five grits were passed. 

 ,, 3 15^ Two grits were passed. Gave castor oil. 

 ,, 4 14 Three grits were passed. No more grits than usual, though 



the motions were very loose, but csecal and ileal, 

 in consequence of the castor oil. The bird was weak 

 and unwilling to move. Coccidian spores passed 

 in large numbers. 



,, 5 14 Seven grits were passed. 



,, 6 12^ Six grits were passed. 



7 12 After death. Three grits were passed. 

 Death occurred after three weeks' abstinence from grit, and the amount 

 of grit remaining in the gizzard was just about equal to the amount lost 

 and collected during the period of the experiment. 



This bird had therefore lost 2f ounces of weight in exactly twenty - one 

 days, and had then died, partly perhaps of Coccidiosis, and partly of the 

 result of grit - starvation. The amount of grit s passed the first day was 

 again more than half what was passed during the remaining twenty days, in 

 fact very nearly two-thirds. All the grits passed were found in the harder 

 formed dropping, never in the csecal drooping. Only once in a sick bird 

 has grit ever been seen by us in the caecum. 



That two birds should have passed so great a quantity of grits on the 

 first day of an experiment of this kind may at first seem accidental, and 

 unreliable as an observation. 



So three other Grouse were put each on a board floor, and their excreta 

 collected and washed out to make certain that the normal output of grits 

 was as great as it seemed to be. In each case it was so, and this 



Experi- 



means that a healthy Grouse with an abundant supply of food mentre- 



. peated on 



and quartz grits, passes between a quarter and a third of the fresh 



Grouse. 



contents of its gizzard every day, but that the amount which is 

 passed consists chiefly of the smaller pieces and the sand. 



