228 T H E P H I L O S O P H Y 



' been broken to pieces. I difcovered three of them in the large 



' inteftines, pointlefs, and mixed with the excrements ; the other 



' nine were miffing, and had probably been voided at the vent. 



' The ftomach was as found and entire as that which had received 



* the needles. Two capons, of which one was fubjected to the ex- 

 ' periment with the needles, and the other with the lancets, fuflain- 

 ' ed them equally well.' 



The fmall ftones fo commonly found in the ftomachs of many of 

 the feathered tribes, have been fuppofed to flieath the gizzard, and 

 to enable it to digeft, or at leaft to break down into fmall fragments, 

 glafs. Iron, wood, ftones, and other hard, and even fharp-pointed, 

 fubftances. Spalanzani has endeavoured to prove, that the mufcu- 

 lar adlion of the gizzard is equally powerful, whether the fmall 

 ftones are prefent or abfent. To afcertain this point, he took wood- 

 pigeons the moment they efcaped from the egg, fed and nurfed 

 them himfelf till they were able to peck: ' They were then,' con- 

 tinues our author, ' confined in a cage, and fupplied at firft with 

 ' vetches foaked in warm water, and afterwards in a dry and hard 

 ' ftate. In a month after they had begun to peck, hard bodies, 



* fuch as tin tubes, glafs globules, and fragments of broken glafs, 

 ' were introduced with the food. Care was taken that each pigeon 



* fhould fwallow only one of thefe fubftances. In two days after- 



* wards they were killed. Not one of the ftomachs contained a 

 ' fingle pebble; and yet the tubes were bruifed and flattened, and 

 ' the fpherules and bits of glafs blunted and broken : This happened 

 ' alike to each body ; nor did the fmalleft laceration appear on the 

 ' coats of the ftorq^ch.' From feveral experiments of a fimilar na- 

 ture, and accompanied with the fame events, Spalanzani concludes 

 this fubjedl with that candour which is always a genuine charaQe- 

 riftic of a real philofopbic fpirlt. Upon the whole, ' it appears,' 

 fays he, ' that thefe fmall ftones are not at all neceflary to the tritura- 



' tion 



