TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS. 151 



" My first experiment was made with a view to 

 ascertain whether it was capable of digesting- bone, 

 independently of the action of the stomach. This 

 result was successful ; but I have before said so much 

 on the subject of the digestion of bone, that I should 

 omit relating the present instance particularly, but 

 for a new and important phenomenon, which renders 

 the detail necessary. The bone consisted of little 

 splinters of an ox's thigh-bone; they were very hard 

 and compact, and of various sizes, from a grain of 

 wheat to a bean ; they weighed together sixty-seven 

 grains. I put them into two close tubes, in which 

 they were rather closely crammed. To prevent their 

 falling out of the tubes when they began to be dis- 

 solved, and consequently to get loose from each other, 

 I put the tubes in a linen bag, a precaution which I 

 had before employed, and continued to employ 

 occasionally in future. In twenty-four hours the 

 bones had shifted their respective places, and rattled 

 in the tubes, a circumstance that showed the bulk to 

 be diminished. I examined them again after they 

 had been two days in the stomach. The pieces 

 of the size of grains of wheat were all destroyed, 

 which were now no larger than millet. Three of 

 the splinters were at first as big as beans, but 

 now reduced to the size of maize. Those of an 

 intermediate size were diminished in proportion. 

 During the whole time they all continued hard. At 

 the third examination, after fifty-seven hours' longer 

 continuance in the stomach, the three large pieces only 

 were left, and they were now no larger than millet ; 

 when I struck them with a hammer, I found that they 

 retained their original hardness. The gastric liquor, 

 therefore, of the falcon does not, like that of owls and 

 many other animals, insinuate itself into the substance 

 of the bone, but acts on the surface only. The 

 phenomenon, I think, may be thus explained : 



p 3 



