BONES FOR BREAKFAST 95 



excrement of such birds as Starlings and Babblers, 

 which do not cast pellets either, so that it looks 

 as if they were in possession of a chitin- solvent ; 

 though perhaps microscopical investigation might 

 reveal comminuted particles of it in the dung. 



Spallanzani found that a captive Eagle, though 

 casting pellets, did digest some portions of bones 

 introduced into its stomach in a perforated tube 

 wrapped in meat as a disguise ; it could also digest 

 bread thus disguised, though it would not take it 

 when openly offered, as Kites, even at liberty, will do. 



The Lammergeier or Bearded Vulture (Gypaftvs 

 barbatus) has probably the strongest digestive powers 

 of any animal-feeder, since it habitually eats bare 

 bones, coming to a carcass after the other Vultures 

 have left it, and swallowing such bones as it can. 

 Others it takes up into the air and drops on the 

 ground, descending in order to eat up the fragments. 

 It treats tortoises in the same way, and Crows and 

 Gulls are known, by the way, to practise the same 

 trick with mussels. The Great Adjutant Stork 

 (Leptoptilus dubius) of India also swallows bones, 

 but it does not wait till Vultures have left a carcass, 

 but comes and drives them away from it, and 

 gobbles down all it can swallow, flesh and bones 

 alike. 



The Lammergeier eats not only bones and flesh, 

 but ordure, like the Scavenger Vulture, and a 

 Desert- Chough (Podoces hendersoni) feeds on the 

 dung of beasts of burden, not merely picking out un- 

 digested grain, as so many birds do, but swallowing 



