TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. Ill 



failed, to the great astonishment of Morera, who 

 could only solve the difficulty by supposing Redi's 

 headach to be different from those of Asia ; for, said 

 he, " unless these stones be endowed with miracu- 

 lous virtues, Nature, who makes nothing in vain, 

 nor without a particular end, would not have pro- 

 duced them in the stomachs of fowls." So also 

 thought Redi ; but not being able to see any con- 

 nection between their production and the cure of 

 headachs, though Morera fortified his opinion by 

 the authority of Pliny, Galen*, and Solinus, he set 

 himself to discover some more rational explanation 

 of the circumstance, and went through a number of 

 ingenious experiments with this viewf. These we 

 shall not however stop to detail, for though his 

 conclusions were perhaps near the truth, those of 

 subsequent observers are more adapted to our present 

 purpose. It will be useful before detailing these 

 experiments, to give some description of the organs 

 of digestion in birds. 



The crop or craw (ingluviei) is a large membra- 

 nous cavity, analogous, as many think, to the first 

 stomach in ruminating animals, placed at the lower 

 end of the gullet, in front of the chest, the gullet 

 opening into its upper part, and recommencing about 

 the middle of the bag, so that the crop is in some 

 measure out of the course of the regular communica- 

 tion between the two openings of the gullet. It 

 receives the food when first swallowed, and by 

 softening it by means of certain secretions, fits it for 

 transmission into the organ called the gizzard. In 

 birds which have no distinct crop, the lower part of 

 the gullet expands into the form of a reservoir. 



To the crop succeeds another cavity in shape of a 



funnel (infundibulum), which may not improperly be 



called the second stomach, smaller than the crop, but 



varying considerably in different species. It is larger 



* De Incantatione. t Degli Anim. Viventi. 



