TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 135 



no less relish, than a bit picked out of an Orleans 

 plum or a ripe pear. The seed-eating birds, on the 

 other hand, always endeavour when they can to break 

 the husk, and caged canaries or goldfinches may thus 

 be observed to spend more than half their time in 

 shelling off the husks of the larger seeds, though rape, 

 millet, or poppy seed is too small to get the edges of 

 the bill to act upon it, and has therefore to be 

 swallowed unbroken*. Whether the gravel or sand 

 which is always given to cage-birds, and without 

 which it is said they will not thrive, contributes to 

 the trituration of these seeds in the stomach, has not 

 been ascertained, and has indeed been less attended 

 to than the analogous circumstance in the case of 

 poultry. 



*J.R. 



