11(5 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



Home remarks, these birds never refuse food even 

 when dying 1 , and when none of the functions of 

 digestion are going on ; a circumstance which gives 

 the by-standers hopes of recovery, for the bird will 

 go on feeding till it drop down dead. If examined 

 after death the gizzard is generally quite full ; whereas 

 other animals would not eat any thing in such a case, 

 though they might perhaps drink, water being amongst 

 the last things which the dying desire and rarely ever 

 loathe. 



In order to ascertain the peculiar powers of the 

 gizzard in grinding and in digesting, Spallanzani, 

 repeating and extending the experiments of Reaumur, 

 procured small glass and metal balls and tubes, 

 perforated with numerous holes, and filling them with 

 different kinds of food, he caused them to be swallowed 

 by barn-door fowls, turkeys, and other birds. The 

 balls having been filled with barley and other grain, 

 in their entire unbruised state, he allowed them to 

 remain from twenty-four to forty-eight hours in the 

 gizzard, when they were taken out and examined. 

 In all such cases, he could not, after the most 

 attentive examination, discover that the digestive 

 fluid had effected the least change on the grains, 

 though from the numerous holes in the balls they 

 were fully exposed to its action. The grains indeed 

 had suffered no diminution of size and exhibited no 

 marks of dissolution. Similar experiments were 

 repeatedly tried upon birds furnished with strong 

 muscular gizzards, and the result was uniformly 

 the same, no effect, in any instance, being produced 

 by the digestive fluid upon the grain contained in the 

 balls. 



From these experiments proving unsuccessful, 

 Spallanzani was led to suspect that, though the 

 digestive fluid was incapable of dissolving the grains 

 in their entire state, it might probably act upon them 

 when sufficiently bruised or comminuted. To as- 



