334 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
than those collected at the school. But the question still suggested 
itself whether, since the school birds had evidently eaten many 
more cherry-stones than the birds at the barn, it may not have 
happened that they became more accustomed to the digestion of 
the stones. It is not impossible, perhaps, that they may have even 
acquired a habit of discharging the useless fragments speedily. 
The very fact that the gizzards of the birds were habitually dis- 
tended with the stones may possibly have led to the more rapid 
evacuation of the fragments. It seems improbable, withal, that 
birds whose gizzards were incessantly full of cherry-stones could 
have felt very keenly the usual need of swallowing bits of gravel ; 
so that the fragments of the cherry-stones may not haye been long 
subjected to the ordinary grinding-process. That is to say, it may 
well have been true that there was actually used by the birds at 
the barn an implement (gravel) better fitted for crushing the cherry- 
stones than was employed by the birds at the school. Even in the 
barn-dung, however, one or two fragments as large as half a cherry- 
stone were found, manifestly of the cultivated cherry ; and as many 
as seven whole stones of one or the other wild species were col- 
lected which had passed unbroken through the birds. On cracking 
these stones a perfect kernel was found within the shell in every 
instance. Several quartz pebbles were found also, as before; and 
three or four very hard minute, glistening black seeds of some 
herbaceous plant which had passed through the birds unharmed ; 
but in general the comminution of the indigestible matter was 
remarkably thorough. 
It is worthy of remark that some botanists and geologists appear 
to have occasionally lost sight for a moment of the completeness of 
the trituration to which the food of grain-eating birds is subjected. 
The fact certainly militates strongly against the idea which has 
sometimes been suggested, that seeds and the stones of fruit are 
transported and scattered by such birds. It is true of course that 
many fruit-eating birds are active agents in disseminating seeds 
and fruit-stones, for they may either eat only the pulp of the fruit 
and leave the stone intact at the place to which they have carried 
it, or they may disgorge the seeds of berries after the fleshy por- 
tion has been digested, or the seeds may pass off undigested in the 
dung. But it seems plain that with birds whose gizzards are habit- 
ually occupied in grinding grain it is only in rare instances that 
any seeds can escape digestion. The occasional bits of gravel, as 
well as the unbroken cherry-stones and the black seeds found in 
