" pigeon-liver'd." i 85 



when paired, has been already referred to. (As You Like 

 It, Act iii. Sc. 3 ; Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. 3, &c.) 



It has been stated that the absence of a gall-bladder in 

 pigeons is compensated for by the extraordinary develop- 

 ment of the crop, by the aid of which the food becomes so 

 thoroughly digested, that the gall is rendered unnecessary. 

 This, however, is not strictly correct, as the food is only 

 macerated in the crop ; and the gall, as it is secreted, 

 passes, by two ducts, from the liver into the duodenum, 

 instead of into a gall-bladder. Shakespeare has alluded 

 to this peculiarity in the digestive organs of pigeons in 

 Hamlet, where the Prince says : — 



" I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall 

 To make oppression bitter." 



Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2. 



The manner in which they feed their young, to which 

 allusion is made in As You Like It (Act i. Sc. 2), is very 

 remarkable. 



Most birds collect for their young, but in the case of 

 pigeons and some others, there exists a provision very 

 similar to that of milk in quadrupeds. " I have disco- 

 vered," says John Hunter,* "in my enquiries concerning 

 the various modes in which young animals are nourished, 

 that all the dove kind are endowed with a similar power. 



" The young pigeon, like the young quadruped, till it is 

 capable of digesting the common food of its kind, is fed 



* Hunter " On the Animal Economy," p. 194. 



]i L! 



