198 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



and so long will they peek and bite them by the heads, 

 until they let go their hold of the fish they have 

 gotten, and so they wring it perforce from them. 

 This bird, when his belly is full of shell-fishes, that 

 he hath greedily devoured, and hath by the natural 

 heat of his craw and gorge in some sort concocted 

 them, casteth all up again ; and at leisure picketh 

 out the meat and eateth it again, leaving the shells 

 behind*." As Julian and Appianf give a similar 

 account of herons, gulls, and other water-fowl, it is 

 probable the observation has been hastily applied to 

 the pelican, whose craw or bag does not seem to 

 possess any digestive power. Even the stork, which 

 has been compared in this respect with ruminating 

 animals, does not appear to possess much, if any, 

 power of digestion in the craw, as has been shown 

 by Pever J and Schelhammer. 



The quantities of food brought for their young by 

 the parents of birds which feed upon fish, has at- 

 tracted the attention of every naturalist who has ob- 

 served their nests. * " So much fish," says Audubon, 

 " is at times carried to the nest of the fish-hawk 

 (Pandion Halicetus, SAVIGNY), that a quantity of it 

 falls to the ground, and is left there to putrefy around 

 the foot of the tree||;" and of the white-headed eagle, 

 he says, the young " are fed most abundantly while 

 under the care of the parents, which procure for 

 them ample supplies of fish, either accidentally cast 

 ashore, or taken from the fish-hawk, together with 

 rabbits, squirrels, young lambs, pigs, opossums, or 



racoons 5T" 



The various species of eagles are all recorded to 

 be equally assiduous in supplying extraordinary quan- 



* Holland, x. 40. 

 t In Aucupio, Phys. Cur. p. 1220. 



J Ephem. Nat. Cur. ii. 2, 97. Collect. Acad. Etrang. iv. 109. 

 |1 Ornith. Biogr. p. 419. f Ibid. p. 162. 



