MEMOIR OF DANIEL TREADWELL. 



471 



the weight of the bird each day after the seventh day. 



day 



was, as I have said, inferred from its subsequent weight. The worms were not actually weighed 

 after the twelfth day, for, as I found by numerous trials that those of medium size, and such 

 alone were given, weighed from 11 to 15 



grains when freed from dirt externally. I have 



* 



entered them at 12 grains each in the table. On the fifteenth day I tried a small quantity 



meat 



worms. With the meat the bird ate a large quantity of earth and gravel, and always drank 

 freely after eating. Considering this meat clear muscular flesh, both in its effect upon the appe- 

 tite and nutrition, as equal to twice its weight of earth-worms, I have given it that value in the 

 sixth column, which I intend to represent the value of the whole amount of food taken in weight 



ms 



By this table it will be seen that, although the food was increased up to 40 worms, weighing 

 20 pennyweights, on the eleventh day, the bird rather fell off than increased in weight, and 

 it was not till the fourteenth day, when he ate 68 worms weighing 34 pennyweights, that he 

 began decidedly to increase. The weight of the bird on the morning of this great feat of gorman- 

 dizing was 24 pennyweights ; he therefore ate 40 per cent more than his own weight in twelve 

 hours, and when he had finished weighed 5 pennyweights, or 15 per cent, less than the food 

 he had taken in that time. The length of these worms, if laid end to end, would be about 12 

 feet, or about ten times the length of the intestine into which they ultimately passed. Will it be 

 said that the earth-worm contains but a small amount of solid or nutritious matter ? Let us then 

 take the twenty-seventh day, when the food was exclusively clear muscular flesh, beef, and the 

 quantity 23 pennyweights. The weight of the bird is not given in the table for the morning, but 

 at night it was 52 pennyweights, or but little more than double the actual amount of muscular 

 flesh consumed during the day, not to notice the water and earth. What a wonderful contrast 

 does this present with the amount of food required, not merely with the cold-blooded vertebrates, 

 fishes, and reptiles, many of which can live for months without food to be seen, but with the 

 mammalia also ! A man at this rate should eat about 70 pounds of flesh a day, and although 

 this is not entered in the table, to equal the bird he should drink some 8 or 10 gallons of water. 



