THE STOMACH. 
45 
there are two remarkable reservoirs from which a very 
tenacious mucus may be expressed of infinite importance to 
the bird : for it is so little choice in its food, that in the 
stomach of one belonging to the King, which died at Windsor, 
and was forwarded to the Zoological Society for dissection, 
some pieces of wood of considerable size, several large nails, 
and a hen’s egg, entire and uninjured, were discovered; and 
in another, in addition to some long cabbage-stalks, were 
masses of bricks of the size of a man’s fist. 
This large space and capacity of the gullet is clearly in- 
tended to counterbalance the disadvantages of uncertain 
subsistence. Thus, Herons and Cormorants will devour as 
much fish at once as will last them for a long time. 
There is another peculiarity, too, in the gullet of fish- 
feeding birds, that it is usually wider near the mouth, thus 
enabling them to gulp down their slippery food in an instant, 
without giving them an opportunity of escaping. In all 
these birds the width and space of the gullet does away with 
the use of the crop, which is accordingly, in this class of birds, 
exceedingly small, or altogether wanting. 
The crop is furnished with a number of vessels secreting 
an oily fluid, something similar to the liquid in the gullet 
just mentioned. In such birds as feed their young from the 
crop, these vessels are observed to swell considerably at that 
particular time, in order to provide a great increase of this 
unctuous liquid. Those who have kept Turtledoves or 
Pigeons, must be familiar with the manner by which the 
young birds receive their food, almost thrusting their heads 
down the very throats of the old ones, to reach the nourish- 
ment provided in the enormous crops of their parents, where 
this lubricating liquid is provided in great quantity when the 
nestlings are young; but decreases in abundance as they 
grow older, and require less nourishing food. 
This portion of the digestive organs is the most capacious 
in what is called the gallinaceous or poultry tribe, which feed 
chiefly on grain, requiring much softening; and there, 
accordingly, we find the food retained, till it is sufficiently 
softened to pass onwards to the stomach. And in this tribe 
