Birds. 9783 



The bird is a late straggler, for we generally miss this cheering harbinger of spring 

 nearly a ruonlh earlier: it was in beautiful plumage and excellent condition: sex 

 female. The stomach contained twenty larvae, nineteen of Pieris Napi and one of the 

 common "tiger moth." This last had been just long enough suljected to the pro- 

 cesses of digestion to cause the hairs to scale oflF its integument with the slightest 

 movement or touch ; some of these hairs had already become scattered over the niucuus 

 lining of the stoniiich, and were difficult to distinguish in colour, form and size from a 

 second series of hairs, which I found actually adherent to and growing from a cer- 

 tain region or tract of the lining membrane itself. With a fine pair of forceps I drew 

 several of these hairs from their mucous bed, and found them to be perfect hairs, having 

 a bnlb or root exactly similar to that of an ordinary hair on the outer surface of the 

 body. Supposing the organ to be in silu, along its internal lower concavity I found 

 these hairs most numerous, arranged first in a double brush-like row, parallel on either 

 side of the median line, and equal in size, colour and form. These two rows seemed 

 gradually to be lost as they expanded themselves into a series of larger hairs, scattered 

 irregularly over the interval of space between the termination of the rows and the point 

 where the stomach opens into the duodenum. These larger hairs reminded me of the 

 points on the cylinder of a musical-box, apparently confused, and yet, on closer inspec- 

 tion, evidently arranged with some important ulterior object in view. I should say, 

 after a careful inspection of these hair-like bodies, that they serve a purpose rather 

 mechanical than absorbent, nor do they resemble a true villus in their structure. Their 

 points or extremities all take one direction naturally, and that is towards the cardiac 

 or oesophageal end of the organ. Then why should they be villi at all, whose office is 

 simply to absorb sapid food flowing over their surfaces ? Why should the cuckoo 

 require a more rapid and perfect, not to say supplementary, or rather superadded 

 arrangement of digestive apparatus than other insectivorous birds? I cannot see it, 

 because its food is ever plentiful, and it dwells amid the larvas, &c , to whose retreats 

 instinct guides the bird; moreover, the stomach is in itself a perfectly digesting organ. 

 May not these hair-like processes, set deeply in a highly mobile and muscular layer of 

 the stomach, serve the purpose of retaining within the organ its living contents, which 

 are so often rapidly thrown into it, and which might often, by their own effijrts to 

 escape, otherwise interfere with the perfect digestion of a full meal ? I am quite cer- 

 tain as to the hairs being of two kinds, viz, one set those of the larvae swallowed and 

 partially digested, and another set, very similar in appearance, belonging to and a 

 distinct arrangement of the organ itself. I discard altogether, I may add, the theory 

 of these hairs being the result of disease. There is far too evident design in their 

 arrangement and position, and besides it is not likely that a vigorous, fleshy, well-fed 

 young bird of the year should be the subject of so considerable a disease of an organ 

 so essential to life and the nutrition of the body as the stomach. — W. IV. BouUon; 

 Beverley, August 21, 1865. 



Hopes of the Black Woodpecker.— 1 have every hope that I shall be able to send 

 you the particulars of the capture of this species on Dartmoor. I know it was captured 

 there, and had it confirmed the other day by a gentleman who knows the owner, and 

 I have written to him for the date, locality, &c., &c. — Edward Hearle Rodd ; 

 Pemanci. 



Quails in Cleveland. — The call-note of the quail has been heard by me this year 

 in the close vicinity of my garden and in the adjoining fields. On the 24ih of June, 

 having to go to the village, and the note of the quail sounding continuously from a 



