“ pigeon-liver’d.” 185 
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. 
B Ii 
