TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 115 



plants, have the same origin, particularly cherry- 

 trees*." With all deference, however, to our author, 

 we have no doubt that the plum, cherry, and goose- 

 berry trees, which we so frequently meet with in 

 hedges and by road-sides, as frequently originate from 

 fruit accidentally dropped by passengers as from birds 

 in the manner suggested. One instance, however, of 

 the dissemination of seeds by birds has long attracted 

 attention in the singular parasitic shrub called the 

 misseltoe (Viscum album). The berries of this shrub 

 are eaten early in spring by the missel-thrush (Turdus 

 viscivorus) and other birds, and the seeds passing un- 

 digested, adhere to the branches of trees, where they 

 vegetate. This method of propagation is indeed 

 denied by some authors from the circumstance of the 

 roots being always inserted on the underside of the 

 branches ; but they surely forget that the rains must 

 soon wash the seeds down from the upper part of the 

 branch where they are first deposited. It was not 

 till after many experiments were tried, that the mis- 

 seltoe could be propagated artificially, and success, if 

 we mistake not, was first obtained in the garden of 

 Mr. Collins of Knaresborough, where many thriving 

 plants were produced on the dwarf apple-tree, by 

 rubbing the berries when ripe upon the smooth bark, 

 so as to cause the seeds to adhere closely t- Mr. 

 London directs the berries to be inserted into slits in 

 the bark of a tree early in spring, and a bit of matting 

 to be tied over them to protect them from birds J. 



To return to the structure of the gizzard ; it is 

 obvious that every part of it is calculated for pro- 

 ducing very powerful trituration, and apparently to 

 compensate for the absence of grinding teeth in the 

 animals. It results from the hard gristly structure 

 of the gizzard in granivorous birds that it is pos- 

 sessed of small sensibility, and hence, as Sir Everard 



* Comp. Anat. i. 287. f Hunter's Evelyn, 



t Encycl, of Plants, No, 2054. 



M 



