1 86 "AS PIGEONS FEED THEIR YOUNG." 



with a substance secreted for that purpose by the parent 

 animal ; not, as in the mammalia, by the female alone, but 

 also by the male, which perhaps furnishes this nutriment 

 in a degree still more abundant. 



" It is a common property of birds, that both male and 

 female are equally employed in hatching and in feeding 

 their young in the second stage, but this particular mode 

 of nourishment, by means of a substance secreted in their 

 own bodies, is peculiar to certain kinds, and is carried on 

 in the crop. 



" Besides the dove kind, I have some reason to suppose 

 parrots to be endowed with the same faculty, as they have 

 the power of throwing up the contents of the crop, and 

 feeding one another. 



" I have seen the cock parrakeet regularly feed the hen, 

 by first filling his own crop, and then supplying her from 

 his beak. Parrots, macaws, cockatoos, &c, when they are 

 very fond of the person who feeds them, may likewise be 

 observed to have the action of throwing up the food, and 

 often do it. The cock pigeon, when he caresses the hen, 

 performs the same kind of action as when he feeds his 

 young, but I do not know if at this time he throws up 

 anything from the crop. 



" During incubation, the coats of the crop in the pigeon 

 are gradually enlarged and thickened, like what happens 

 to the udder of females of the class mammalia, in the 

 term of uterine gestation. On comparing the state of the 



