1 HISTORY OF 



very small and short ones ; water-fowl, and birds 

 of the poultry kind, the longest of all. There is 

 still another appendix observable in the intestines 

 of birds, resembling a little worm, which is no- 

 thing more than the remainder of that passage by 

 which the yolk was conveyed into the guts of 

 the young chicken while yet in the egg and 

 under incubation. 



The outlet of that duct which conveys the bile 

 into the intestines is, in most birds, a great way 

 distant from the stomach ; which may arise from 

 the danger there would be of the bile regurgi- 

 tating into the stomach in their various rapid mo- 

 tions, as we see in men at sea ; wherefore their 

 biliary duct is so contrived, that this regurgitation 

 cannot take place. 



All birds, though they want a bladder for 

 urine, have large kidneys and ureters, by which 

 this secretion is made, and carried away by one 

 common canal. " Birds," says Harvey, " as well 

 as serpents, which have spongy lungs, make but 

 little water, because they drink but little. They, 

 therefore, have no need of a bladder ; but their 

 urine distils down into the common canal, de- 

 signed for receiving the other excrements of the 

 body. The urine of birds differs from that of 

 other animals ; for as there is usually in urine two 

 parts, one more serous and liquid, the other more 

 thick and gross, which subsides to the bottom, 

 in birds the last part is most abundant, and is 

 distinguished from the rest by its white or silver 

 colour. This part is found not only in the whole 

 intestinal canal, but is seen also in the whole 



