STONES SWALLOWED BY BIBDS. 
503 
name of odoriferous earths (tierras oiorosas), have an odour 
agreeable to women.* Brown relates, in his History of 
•Jamaica, that the crocodiles of South America swallow 
small stones, and pieces of very hard wood, when the lakes 
which they inhabit are dry, or when they are in want of 
food. M. Bonpland and I observed in a crocodile, eleven 
feet long, which we dissected at Batallez, on the banks of 
the Bio Magdalena, that the stomach of this reptile con- 
tained half-digested fish, and rounded fragments of granite 
three or four inches in diameter. It is difficult to admit 
that the crocodiles swallow these stony masses accidentally, 
for they do not catch fish with their lower jaw resting on 
the gronnd at the bottom of the river. The Indians have 
framed the absurd hypothesis that these indolent animals 
like to augment their weight, that they may have less 
trouble in diving. I rather think that they load their 
stomach with large pebbles, to excite an abundant secre- 
tion ol the gastric juice. The experiments of Majendie 
render this explanation extremely probable. With respect 
to the habit ot the granivorous birds, particularly the galli- 
nacese and ostriches, of swallowing sand and small pebbles, 
it has been hitherto attributed to an instinctive desire of 
accelerating the trituration of the aliments in a muscular 
and thick stomach. 
We have mentioned, that tribes of Negroes on the 
Gambia mingle clay with their rice. Some families of Otto- 
macs were perhaps formerly accustomed to cause the maize 
and other farinaceous seeds to rot in their poya, in order to 
eat earth and amylaceous matter together : possibly it was a 
preparation of this kind, that Bather Gumilla described in- 
distinctly in the first volume of his work, when he affirms, 
“that the Guamos and the Ottomacs feed upon earth only 
because it is impregnated with the sustmcia del male, (sub- 
stance of maize) and the fat of the cayman.” I have already 
observed that neither the present missionary of Uruaua, nor 
Bray J uan Gonzales, who lived long in those countries, knew 
anything of this mixture of animal and vegetable substances 
* Bucaro (va s fictile odoriferum). People are fond of drinking out of 
these vessels on account of the smell of the clay. The women of the 
province of Alentejo acquire a habit of masticating the bucaro earth ; ar.d 
feel a great privation when they cannot indulge this vitiated taste- 
