150 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. 



have already given. " Observing," he says, " that 

 when they were hungry and opened their beaks very 

 wide, if I dropped a pea, French bean, or cherry into 

 it, they swallowed it with as much avidity as if it had 

 been the pleasantest kind of food, I was desirous of 

 seeing whether the stomach would digest vegetable 

 substances. With this view I enclosed several of the 

 seeds just enumerated in some tubes, and forced 

 the bird to swallow them, but to no purpose ; for 

 though the liquor swelled the seeds, and perhaps 

 altered the colour, they underwent no diminution of 

 bulk. They were cast up undigested in a day or two ; 

 a circumstance which sufficiently shows that such 

 kind of food, notwithstanding they appear to relish 

 it, is ill adapted to their gastric juices. The greedi- 

 ness with which they swallow such substances can 

 arise only from that blind appetite in consequence of 

 which many birds take whatever is offered them. 



" Being satisfied with these experiments on noc- 

 turnal birds of prey, I turned my attention to some of 

 the diurnal ones. My first subject was a falcon, given 

 me by my illustrious friend the Abbe Corti. 1 soon 

 found that I could not handle this bird so familiarly 

 as those which I have had occasion to mention 

 hitherto. The strong beak and long sharp talons 

 would not easily permit me to open the mouth by 

 force, but I contrived a method of introducing tubes 

 into the stomach without the bird being aware, by 

 cutting some flesh in pieces, making holes in them, 

 and in these concealing the tubes. When the falcon 

 was hungry he ran eagerly to the pieces of flesh, and 

 swallowed them whole. For the fraud to succeed it 

 was necessary that the tubes should be quite covered 

 with flesh, for if any part of them was bare, the 

 falcon would put them under his talons, and tear 

 the flesh away with his beak, and swallow it, leaving 

 the tube. 



