BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 329 
In the beginning, before the completeness of the cherry-stone 
eating habit had been made out. questions presented themselves 
as to whether the hard cherry-stones might not possibly have been 
picked up merely in place of so much gravel for use in the gizzard, 
or have been mistaken perhaps for peas. The enormous quantity 
of shells collected certainly tends to invalidate the idea that the 
stones might have been used as gravel, though it is true enough 
that in case the stones were taken in for grinding purposes a con- 
tinuous supply of them would have been needed to replace the in- 
cessant loss of those crushed and discharged. As regards the 
suggestion that the cherry-stones may have been mistaken for 
peas, it seems plain that something in their external appearance 
must have attracted the birds. It is not easy to believe that either 
the sense of taste or of smell can have led the pigeons to pick up 
the cherry-stones as food. If they did eat them as food for the 
sake of the kernels within the hard shell, by what conceivable 
means were they induced to do so? How were the birds informed 
of the small hidden store of food? and how wholly incommensurate 
with the nutritive effect of the kernels must have been the amount 
of force expended in crushing the enveloping shells. The whole 
question of the sense of taste in grain-eating birds is obscure 
enough anyway, and the present instance does but make the mat- 
ter perhaps still more difficult of solution than it seemed before. 
To take, for example, a wholly dissimilar instance: Why is it that 
pigeons are so extravagantly fond of peas? As is well known, the 
domestic pigeon often causes serious trouble to farmers and gar- 
deners by digging up recently sown peas—a kind of food which 
the bird appears to prefer to all others. I have myself repeatedly 
watched pigeons giving themselves an amount of trouble and hard 
labor in unearthing peas in a garden that could hardly be credited 
when seen. By repeated, powerful side-blows with the beak the 
earth is dug away and the seed finally laid bare. Professor John- 
son * has remarked that ‘‘in the light and porous soil of the gar- 
dens of New Haven peas may be sown six to eight inches deep 
without detriment, and are thereby better secured from the ravages 
of the domestic pigeon.” It might be argued that inasmuch as the 
pea contains a large proportion of albuminous constituents it may 
satisfy a natural craving of the pigeons for nitrogenous food. But 
if this be really the attraction, why are not the birds fond of the 
* In his ‘‘ How Crops Grow,” New York, 1868, p. 316. 
