GIFT OF filOLOv RA G PUBLISHED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. THE LIBRARY ENTERTAINING KNOWLEDGE. FACULTIES OF BIRDS. COMMITTEE. Chairman The Right Hon. Lord BROUGHAM, F.R.S., Member of the National Institute of France. Vice-Chairman Rt. Hon. Lord J. RUSSELL, M.P. Treasurer WILLIAM TOOKE, Esq., M.P., F.R.S. W. Allen, Esq., F.R. and R.A.S. Captain F. Beaufort, R.N., F.R. and R.A.S. , Hydrographer lo the Ad- miralty. SirC. Bell, F.R.S.L. &E. G. Burrows, M.D. C. Hay Cameron, Esq. J. Bonham Carter, Esq., M.P. The Right Kev. the Bishop of Chichester, D.D. William Coulson, Esq. R. D. Craig. Esq. Wm. Crawford, Esq. J. Frederick Daniell, Esq., F.R.S. H. T DelaBeche, Esq., F.R.S. Rt. Hon. Lord Denman. T. Drummond, Esq., R.E., F.R.A.S. C. L. Eastlake, Esq., R.A. Rt. Hon. Viscount Ebrington, M.P. Sir Henry Ellis, Principal Librarian of the British Museum. T. F. Ellis, Esq., M.A., F.R.A.S. John Elliotson, M.D., F.R.S. Thomas Falconer, Esq. I. L. Goldsmid,Esq., F.R. and R.A.S. B. Gompertz, Esq., F.R. and R.A.S. G. B. Greenough, Esq., F.R. and L.S. H. Hallam, Esq., F.R.S., M.A. M. D. Hill, Esq. Rowland Hill, Esq., F.R.A.S. Edwin Hill, Esq. Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. Hobhouse, Bt., MP. David Jardine, Esq., M.A. Henry B. Ker, Esq. The Rt. Hon. the Earl of Kerry, M.P. Thos. Hewitt Key, Esq., M.A. George C. Lewis, Esq., M.A. James Loch, Esq., M.P., F.G.S. George Long, Esq., M.A. J. W. Lubbock, Esq., F.R., R.A., and L.S.S. H. Maiden, Esq., M.A. A. T. Malkin, Esq., M.A. James Manning, Esq. J. H.Merivale,Esq., M.A.,F.A.S. James Mill, Esq. W. H. Ord, Esq., M.P. Rt. Hon. Sir H. Parnell, Bart., M.P. Dr. Roget, Sec. R.S., F R.A.S. Sir M. A. Shee, P.R.A., F.R.S. John Abel Smith, Esq., M.P. Right Hon. Earl Spencer. John Taylor, Esq., F.R.S. Dr. A. T. Thomson, F.L.S. H. Waymouth, Esq. J. Whishaw, Esq., M.A., F.R.S. .Tohn Wood, Esq. John Wrottesley, Esq., M.A., F.R.A.S, THOMAS COATES, Esq., Secretary, 59, Lincoln's Inn Fields. THE LIBRARY OF ENTERTAINING KNOWLEDGE. THE FACULTIES OF BIRDS LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUDGATE STREET. MDCCCXXXV. BIOLOGY LIBRARY G LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES, Duke Street, Lambeth. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Page VISION OF BIRDS 1 Vision of the Eagle and the Lynx .... 1 Experiment of Scaliger 2 'Daring of Larks ....... 2 'Ointment of the eyes ...... 3 Eye-brush (membrana nictitans} .... 4 Eye of the Golden Eagle 5 Vision of the Osprey ....... 5 'Fact observed by j, R. . . . . .8 Experiments of Captain Ross and M, Schmidt . 8 Theories of Sir C. Bell and Dr. T. Young . . 9 Theories of Jurine and Sir E. Home . .11 Circular flight of Pigeons . . . . .12 Carrier Pigeon . . . . . .13 Passenger Pigeon . . . . . * 14 Singular journeys of a Dog and of an Ass. .16 Circular flight of carrion birds . . .17 Concourse of carrion birds . . , . .18 Membrane termed the purse and the comb . .19 Eyes of the Mole (Talpa lucidv) . . . . . ( 20 Size of the eyes in birds. . . . . .21 Vision of nocturnal birds . . , . .23 Birds fond of bright objects . . . . .25 Quick vision of the Cormorant , . . .27 CHAPTER II. HEARING OF BIRDS . . . . . , .29 Proverbial quick hearing of the Goose . * * 29 a3 J 03850 VI CONTENTS. Page Structure of the ear 32 External ear Drum of the ear .... 35 Labyrinth of the ear . . . . .37 Eustachian tube . . . . . .39 Ear in nocturnal birds ... 40 Ears of the Fox, Hare, and Polecat . . . .41 Ear of the Owl 46 Drum of the ear in birds . . . .47 De Blaiuville's theory objected to . . . .48 Imitation of sounds . . . .50 Musical ear, according to Le Cat . >1 Illustrations from animals . . .52 Theory of Dr. T. Brown 55 CHAPTER III. SMJTLL IN BIRDS ... 61 -Aroma 61 Smell in carrion birds 62 Peculiarities in the Toucan 63 -Mr. Broderip's Toucan 65 Smell in Vultures .* . .67 Turkey Vulture . . . . . 68 Black Vulture ....... 69 The Raven .70 Anecdote from M. Antoir.e . . .71 Smell in the Rook 72 Smell in water birds 73 Galen's kid 76 Habits of the Mole 77 Smell in the Woodcock 78 Tame Woodcocks ...... 79 CHAPTER IV. TASTE IN BIRDS ....... 81 Experiments of J. R. . . . . .81 Fruit-eating birds . . . . . .82 CONTENTS. Vii Pag e Nicety as to food in some birds , . .83 Tongue in birds . . . . . . .83 Tongue in Man . . . . . . . .84 Tongue of the Pelican and of the Ostrich . . .86 Tongue of the Toucan 87 Tongue of the Woodpecker 89 Tongue of the Wryneck 91 Tongue of the Flamingo 95 Tongue in Ducks 97 Theory of Analogues . . . . . .98 Teeth of the Ring Paroquet 99 Teeth of the Blue Macaw 100 Teeth in the Shoveller and common Duck . .101 Filtering mechanism . . . . . .103 Palate of the Blue Macaw 104 Mechanism of the mandibles ..... 105 Bill of the Avoset 106 Bill of the Shearwater 107 Bill of the Creeper and of the Tits .... 108 CHAPTER V. TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS EIRDS . . . . ,110 Grain swallowed whole by birds . . . .110 Anecdote of Redi . . . . . .Ill Crop or craw* in birds . . . . . .111 Second stomach . . . . . .112 Gizzard 113 Diffusion of seeds by birds . . . . ,114 Experiments of Spallanzani . . .116 Gizzard in the Turkey 117 Action of the gizzard . . . , . .118 Other experiments of Spallanzani . . . .119 Stones in the gizzard .... 122 Opinions of Blumenbach and Hunter . 125 Remarks of the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert . . 126 Stomach in the Swan and the Goose . . . 127 The little Bustard 128 A4 Vlli CONTENTS. Page Solvent or gastric glands . . . . .129 The Emeu . . . . .129 The Cassowary . . ... . .130 The Nandu 131 The Ostrich ... 132 Experiment of Albertus Magnus .... 133 The Black-cap and the Fauvette . . . .134 CHAPTER VI. TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS . . . . .136 Remarks of Plato and Buffon . . . . .136 The gullet in birds of prey . . . , .138 Experiments of Reaumur and Spallanzani . . . 139 Remarks of Aristotle and Pliny , . . .144 Classification of birds of prey by Albertus Magnus . 144 Objections from M. Vaillant and Wilson . . .145 Turkish amusement ...... 146 Courage of birds of prey ..... 147 Combat of an 'Eagle with Thrushes . . . .148 Gullet in Owls ....... 149 Experiments of Spallanzani 150 Gizzard of the carrion Crow . . . . .152 (jizzard of the Raven 153 Solvent glands in the Bustard .... 154 Gastric glands in the Adjutant . . . .155 Digestion of bones by birds ..... 156 CHAFER VII. TASTE- OF PISCIVOROUS BIRDS . . . . .158 Gizzard and gastric glands. in the Solan Goose . .158 A Cormorant poisoned . . . , . . 159 Colonel Montagu's tame Cormorant . . . 160 Fishing Cormorants 162 Bill-pouch of the Pelican 162 Remarks of Dr. Paley 163 Fishing of the White-headed Eagle . . . .165 The Blagre and Bald Buzzard . , . .166 CONTENTS, IX Page Fishing of the Osprey . , . . .167 Fishing of the Heron . ... . . . 169 Misery of the Heron, according to Button . . . 170 Fishing of the Kingfisher 170 Gizzard. of the Gannet, Sea-mew, and Rotch . . 170 CHAPTER VIII. TASTE OF INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS . . . . .173 Food of Humming-birds ..... 173 Birds kill their insect-prey 175 Rooks experience famine in dry weather . . . 175 Peculiarity in Rooks at the base of the bill . . 177 Cape Rook 178 Misrepresentations of the Rook .... ISO Bristles or whiskers of birds . . . . .180 Fly- catcher, or Post-bird 181 Fly-catching of the Chaffinch 182 Seed-eating of the Chaffinch 184 Bud-eating of the Bullfinch . . , . .185 CHAPTER IX. TOUCH IN BIRDS . ..... . . . 187 Supposed origin of the sagacity of animals . . 187 Theory of Buffon 187 Theory of Darwin and Helvetius . . . .188 The hand of man ... . . .189 Importance of the thumb . . . . . 190 Muscles of the hand 191 Nerves of the finger . 192 Fancy of Lord Monboddo * 192 Tact in Birds 193 The lips and whiskers of animals .... 194 The Seal and the Duckbill 195 The bill in Geese and Ducks . . . .196 The sense of heat 197 Roosting of the Ox-eye 197 Roosting of the Black-cap 198 CONTENTS. Page Anecdote of the Chinchilla, . - . . . .198 Cats fond of warmth 199 Anecdote of a Cat 200 Difference of the wild and the domestic Cat . . 201 Mistake of Temminck 201 The Demoiselle Heron 202 A tame Lapwing ...... 202 Want of ingenuity in the Barbary Ape . . . 203 Proceedings of edible Snails ..... 204 The winter nest of the Hedge-hog .... 205 The form of the Hare 200 Illustration from Alpine plants .... 208 Winter shelter of Ptarmigans ..... 209 Effects of cold and heat on insects . . , , 209 CHAPTER X. LOCOMOTIVE FACULTIES OF BIRDS . . . . .212 Motions of insects ...... 212 Walking of Birds 213 Footless birds (Apodd) . . . . .213 Opinions respecting Birds of Paradise . . .214 Feet of the Swift . . . . . .215 Feet of Swallows 216 Walk of the Kingfisher and the Dipper . . . 216 Walk of the Loon and the Coot . . . .219 Walk of the Rails 220 Anecdotes of a Corncrake, . . .221 Running of the Ostrich 221 Tame Ostriches at Podor . . . . . 223 Fleetness of the Bustard 224 The Flamingo, and the Stilt 225 CJimbing birds 226 White's remarks on .the walk of birds . . . 226 Feet of water birds 227 Bjrd at rest: after Borelli . . . . . 228 Opinions of Vicq d'Azyr and Barclay . . . 228 Walk of the Chinese Jacana. . , , . ,230 CONTENTS, XI CHAPTER XI. Page FLIGHT OF BIRDS . .231 Flying similar to swimming ..... 231 Swimming-bladder of fishes . . . . 232 Air-cells of birds discovered by Harvey . . . 233 Air-bones, according to Blumenbach . . . 233 Experiments of Montagu ..... 235 Mechanism in the Pelican ..... 236 Remarks of Sir Charles Bell 238 \Vings and tail, as organs of flight .... 241 Commencement of flight . . . . . 242 Artificial wings 243 Muscles of flight 244 CHAPTER XII. MIGRATION OP BIRDS . 248 Migration twofoldnorthward and southward . . 248 Birds which return from southern climes in the spring 249 Island of Berneray in the breeding season . . 250 Departure of birds in autumn .... 252 Conjectures respecting the appearance and disappear- ance of birds ....... 253 Account of Swallows found on the banks of the Rhine . 255 White's investigations as to the appearance and disap- pearance of birds ...... 256 Opinion of Mr. Bree on the same subject ... 257 Swallows kept in winter ..... 259 Examination of the sand-banks at Waverly . . 261 Submersion of Swallows ..... 262 Submersion of Swallows believed in by Linn.'cus, Klein, Cuvier, and others ...... 263 Anatomical argument against submersion . . . 265 Migration to the moon ...... 266 CHAPTER XIII. MIGRATION (continued) . . . . . . . 268 Facts proving the migration of birds to other countries 268 Catesby's observations on the migration of birds. . 269 Xll CONTENTS. Page Migration of the Rice-bird . . . . .271 of the Passenger Pigeon .... '272 of the Petrel, Wild Turkey, Blue-bird, and Gannet . . 274 of the Stork and Quail . . . .276 Opinions as to the causes of migration . . . 278 Remarks of Temminck on migration . . .281 Opinions of other continental writers on the subject . 285 CHAPTER XIV. INSTINCT . . . . 289 Signification of the term instinct.. .... 289 Opinions of writers who maintain the identity of reason and instinct 290 Opinion of Smellie 290 Opinion of Hume . . . . 290 Opinions of Dr. Darwin . . .291 Remarks of Dr. Mason Good in opposition to this theory 292 Opinions of writers who maintain that animals are mere machines 293 Fanciful statements of Buflfon .... 294 Statement of Lamarck ...... 295 Various opinions of other writers . . . 297 Opinion of Sir Isaac Newton ..... 297 Observations of Addison . . . 297 Opinions of Dr. Mason Good. .... 299 Opinion of Hartley 301 Observations of Mr. Oliver French .... 301 Observations of Mr. Hancock .... 303 Opinion of Cuvier that instinct is derived from innate ideas 304 Dr. Virey's discrimination between reason and instinct. 305 CHAPTER XV. CONCLUSION ........ 308 Proofs of the existence and perfections of the Deity afforded by the works of nature .... 308 CONTENTS. Xiii Page Proofs derived from the study of ornithology . . 309 From the external form of birds .... 310 From their internal structure ..... 310 From comparison of different species . . . 311 From adaptation of structure to faculties, &c. . .311 From means afforded of preserving life . . . 312 From perfection of vision in some birds . . . 313 From hearing in others ..... 314 Sir Charles Bell's treatise on the human hand . . 315 Multiplicity and diversity of animated beings . . 316 Man alone capable of discerning the hand of the Creator 317 ILLUSTRATIONS. No. ' Page 1. Carrier Pigeon (Columba tabellaria) . . 13 2. Eyes of the Eagle, showing their great size in proportion to the head 22 3. Plan, in section, showing the general structure of the Ear 33 4. Inside of the temporal bone, showing the position of the drum and bones of the Ear, surrounded by the mastoid cells ....... 34 5. Tympanum and bones of the Ear . . . .35 6. Bones of the Ear . . . . . .36 7. Sections of the Cochlea . . .37 8. External view of the Cochlea and semicircular canal . 37 9. Section of Cochlea and semicircular canals . . 37 10. Distribution of nerves in. semicircular canals . . 38 11. Distribution of nerves in Cochleaand semicircular canals 38 12. Head of the Horned Owl (Strix otus) . . 40 13. Skull of the Horned Owl, showing the auditory canal . 41 14. Skull of the Hare, showing the auditory canal . . 43 15. Skull of the Polecat, showing the auditory tube . . 43 16. Skull of the Fox, showing the auditory hole . . 46 17. Structure of the Ear of the Owl . . . .46 18. Drum of the Ear in Birds (enlarged from Dei-ham's figure) 47 19. Toucan (Ramphastos toco) . . . . .64 20. Portion of the upper surface of the human tongue, show- ing the nervous papillae, magnified 100 times . 84 21. Upright section of the nervous papillae, magnified 400 times ........ 85 22. Tongue and head of the Ostrich (Strut/tio camelus) . 86 23. Tongue and head of the Toucan (Ramphastos toco) 88 ILLUSTRATIONS. XV No. Page 24. Apparatus for protruding and withdrawing the Wood- pecker's tongue . . .. . , ,89 25. Head and tongue of the Wryneck (Junes torquil/a) . 93 26. Head and tongue of the Flamingo (Phwnicoplerus ruber) . . . . . . . .96 27. Teeth of the Ring Paroquet [chick] (Psittacus tongita- tus] t and portion of the beak of the Blue Macaw (Ara ararauna) ....... 99 28. Teeth of the Blue Macaw (Ara ararauna), and portion of ditto 100 29. Upper mandible of the Shoveller (Rhynchaspis clypeata) 101 30. Palate of the Blue Macaw 104 31. Head of the Shearwater (Rhyncops nigra) . . . 108 32. Creeper (Certkiafamiliaris), male and female, and nest 109 33. Cardiac cavity and gizzard of the. Ostrich . . . 112 34. Cardiac cavity and gizzard of the Ostrich opened. . 113 35. Gizzard of a Turkey, opened to show its grinding sur- faces 117 36. Gizzard of a Swan, opened to show its grinding surfaces 128 37. Cassowary (Casuarias emeu*)*. . . . .130 38. Stomach of the Emeu, opened to show the gastric glands 131 39. Cardiac cavity and gizzard of the Nandu . . . 131 40. The same, opened to show the gastric glands . .131 41. Buzzard (Buteo vulgaris) 148 42. Bustard (Otis tarda) 154 43. Adjutant (Ciconia argala) . . .155 44. Stomach of the Adjutant opened .... 155 45. Gizzard of the Solan Goose, opened to show the gastric glands 158 46. Pelican (Pelecanus onocrotatus) . . . .162 47. Gizzard and cardiac cavity of the Sea Mew opened . 171 48. Stomach of the Rotch opened 172 49. Humming-birds extracting the nectar and catching in- sects 174 50. Head of the Roller, showing the vibrissae . . .181 51. Muscles of the hand, back and front view . . . 191 52. Nerves of the finger 192 Xvi ILLUSTRATIONS. No. Page 53. Skull of the Duck, showing the distribution of the fifth pair of nerves to the upper mandible and serratures on the edge of the lower jaw . . . 196 54. Ornithorynchus paradoxus (Duck-bill) . 197 55. Tails of.the wild and domestic Cat . . . . 201 56. Anthropoides virgo (Demoiselle Heron) , . . 202 57. Paradisea (Bird of Paradise) 214 58. Ostrich carrying a Negro ..... 223 59. Himantopus melanopterus (the Stilt), and Duck. . 225 60. Feet of Water Birds in the act of making the back stroke . . . . . . . . 227 61. Bird at rest: after Sorelli 228 62. Anatomy of the leg of a bird at rest : after Borelli . 229 63. Jacana (Para sine.nsis) walking on the floating leaves of the water-lily . . . . . . .230 64. Swimming-bladders of the Dace and Conger Eel . . 232 THE FACULTIES OF BIRDS. CHAPTER I. VISION OP BIRDS. THE animals most celebrated for piercing sight are the eagle and the lynx ; but if the acute vision of the eagle rested on no better authority than that of the lynx, we should not be disposed to rely on its accuracy, though old Aldrovand says that " nobody of sound mind will deny the lynx to be the clearest sighted of all quadrupeds, since all naturalists are agreed upon the point*." There can be little doubt, however, that the agreement thus quoted as an au- thority sprung from reading and copying rather than from observation ; or perhaps, as Gesrier seems to think, from the similarity of the name to Lynceus, whom the poets fable to have been able to look through trees, walls, and rocks, and even, if we credit Apollonius, to see into the very bowels of the earth. "The truth. is," says Gesner, " that Lynceus, of whom so many fables are told, was the first that found out the mines of gold, silver, and copper in the earth, and therefore simple people seeing him bring gold and silver out of the earth, and coming * De Quadrupedibus Viv. p. 94. B 2 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. now and again upon him when he was digging deep for it, using the light of candles which he never brought out of the pits, they foolishly imagined that by the sight of his eyes he was first of all led to seek those treasures, and hence the proverb ' more quick- sighted than Lynceus,' and from these came the opinion of the singular perspicacity in the lynx*." Observation indeed proves that the sight of the lynx (Felis cer varia, TEMMINCK, and F. Lynx, LINN.) is similar, and little if at all superior, to that of the cat or the tiger; and as it pursues its prey in the night, its eyes, though in appearance " brilliant," as Buffon correctly says, are ill fitted for vision except during twilight. Cuvier, Temminck, Ranzanif, and other recent writers take no notice whatever of the vision of the lynx. The proverbial piercing sight of the eagle rests upon very different evidence to that of the fables we have just endeavoured to account for. Systematic writers afford little information on the subject ; but we have abundant proof of this intensity of vision from other sources. We may, however, reasonably doubt the fact of its fixing its gaze upon the sun, the "naked sun" (il sol pur), as Petrarch gives it}, even though the authority of Scaliger tells us that having " re- peatedly placed an eagle in the sun, it gazed on its rays for a long time intensely and pertinaciously ." It does not appear what motive can induce the bird to gaze on the sun, even if it have the power. Larks indeed and some other small birds are attracted by bright objects, as is proved by what bird-catchers call daring, that is, fixing a piece of looking-glass on a moveable pivot and whirling it round ; but in this case it is probable the larks are allured by the principle of curiosity so very lively in birds, as we have else- * Hist. Anim. Linx. f Elem. di Zoologia, ii. 309, J Sonet. 18, Exerc. 228, VISION. 3 where copiously exemplified. On the general phy- siological principle, also, that the more stimulus an organ can bear the less sensible it must be, we may conclude that the two circumstances of piercing sight and capability to gaze on the sun are incompatible. Accordingly we find that animals which prey in the night, and white animals with red eyes (albinos), while they can see with a faint glimmer of light on account of their extreme sensibility of vision, are so overpowered by the glare of the sun's light that they can scarcely see at all. There is indeed a peculiarity in the eyes not only of the eagle but of all birds, tending to defend them from too strong light, to which it may be interesting to advert. In the eye of man and many other animals, including birds, a beautiful provision is made for sup- plying it with the moisture which is indispensable to render its restless motions easy. For this purpose a fountain or gland, situated in man within the upper and outer part of the bony socket, affords a constant supply of tears, about three or four ounces of which it has been computed are discharged upon the human eye- ball every twenty-four hours. Besides this there is an ointment prepared in the beautiful little glands, about thirty in number, interspersed within the fine skin of the inner eyelid near to the roots of the eyelashes, appearing when magnified like studs of minute pearls. This ointment, which, according to M. Majendie, is of a glairy consistence, like white of egg, is dissolved and diluted by the tears, and the whole is constantly spread over the eyeball by the sweep of the eyelids, which act like valves, and are composed of semi- transparent muscular substance, attached to a ring of gristle or cartilage, which is hinged on the adjacent bone, and gives the eyelids firmness and preserves their shape. Our eyes are besides elegantly fringed with 4 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. short hairs, either to defend the eye with a grate-work from any thing falling into it, or to perform some unknown operation on light. The use of the eyelids is strikingly demonstrated from what takes place when they are cut off a savage punishment sometimes practised in barbarous countries. This prevents sleep, and from the constant irritation of the light, the eyes inflame, the inflammation spreads to the brain, and the victim of torture expires in the most dreadful agony. Birds differ considerably from other animals with respect to the eyelids, which are indeed formed hori- zontally and very distinct ; but the under lid is in most birds much larger and more moveable than the upper, as was observed by Aristotle, in many cases forming on the inner surface a smooth, polished plate (lamina). The part, however, which we have more particu- , larly alluded to, we may with some propriety call the eye-brush (membrana nictitajts ; troisieme paupi- ere, BLAINVILLE). In our own eye we may examine this eye-brush at a looking-glass by turning the eye away as far as possible from the nose. It is a little red fleshy membrane, in form of a crescent, which in such a position of the eye is spread over its inner angle, and when any dust has fallen upon the ball, it sticks to this and is carried into the corner of the eye by the membrane folding back. In birds, again, this eye-brush is much more extended, and is spread over the whole eye by means of two muscles*, one forming a tendinous cylindrical canal, the other passing through this and working like a cord in a pulley. The membrane being translucent, when it is drawn over the eye like a curtain, it is well calculated to prevent it from being dazzled by too much light. * Petit, Mem. de PAcad. des Sciences, 1735-6. VISION. 5 It is evidently, however, a mere conjecture that it is by means of this membrane the eagle can look at the sun*, for we do not see how it could be proved by experiment, as it would be impossible to perceive through it the direction of the pupil. Aristotle was of opinion it was for the purpose of moistening the eye ; but Aldrovand thinks we cannot well draw such an inference, as our own eye is kept sufficiently moist without such a provision f. Willughby describes the eye of the golden eagle as having " a certain thick tunicle stretched forth from below upwards, covering the globe in nictation. Two eyelids, one above, the other beneath, although the lower alone extending upwards is sufficient to cover the whole eye. The region of the eyebrows is very eminent, like that prominent part of houses called the eaves, under which the eyes lie hid as it were in a deep cavity. The eyes are of a green colour (chlorops) of a fiery splendour, shining forth in a pale blue. The pupil is of a deep black. It is very admirable to observe what care nature hath taken, and what provision she hath made for the conservation of the eyes, than which there is no part in this animal more excellent ; for not being content with one tegu- ment, as is usual in other animals, she seemeth to have framed four several lids or covers for them. The membrane for nictation is the same thing, and affords the same use to them that the eyelids do to man. Besides which nature hath superadded two other eyelids, arid oi these the lower so large that they alone suffice to cover and preserve the eyej/' ! It was another remark of Aristotle, that the vision of the osprey (Pandion haliaetus, SAVIGNY) is weak on account of the shade which covers the eyes, * Blumenbach, by La\vrence and Coulson, p. 298. t Ornithologia, i. 64. $ Ornithology, by Ray, p. 58. B3 6 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. and it might be for this reason, perhaps, that he was induced to separate it from the eagles and class it with the owls. There can be no doubt Aristotle was in error in making this remark, as the distance from which it is observed to dart upon its prey proves its sight to be very acute rather than deficient. Aldrovand examined the eye of this bird with minute attention, in order to verify or disprove Aristotle's observations. He accordingly discovered, what Aris- totle probably meant by a shade or cloud, that the opening of the pupil, commonly covered only by the transparent cornea, is in the osprey lined with a very delicate membrane, having the appearance of a small spot. Any apparent inconvenience of structure that might arise from this circumstance is compensated by the great transparency of the circle round the pupil, which in most other birds is dull and opaque. It does not therefore follow that its sight is fainter than that of other birds, because the light can pass easily and largely through the small circle which bounds the pupil, though it is probable the middle of the image will be marked with a small obscure spot, and that the lateral vision ought to be more distinct than the direct. It does not however appear that it sees worse than other birds. It may not perhaps soar quite so high as the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetas, ALDROVAND), nor descry and pursue its prey from such remote distances, nor have quite so acute vision ; but it is not, like the owls, blinded by dazzling light, and it searches for victims as well by day as by night. Willughby thinks it " partly false or uncertain," that the golden eagle *' doth so excel in quick-sight- edness, soaring so high in the air that she can very hardly be discerned by us in all that light, yet she can espy a hare lying under a bush, or a little fish swimming in the water ; though I grant," he adds, VISION. 7 " that both the eagle and other rapacious birds are very sharp-sighted, yet do I not think that their eyes can reach the object at such distances*." We may remark, however, with all deference to the high authority of Willughby, that his scepticism is here carried too far, as the accounts he objects to are supported by undoubted facts. For though we should reject the authority of Homer, who, as Pope renders it, says Endued with sharpest eye, The sacred eagle, from his walks above, Looks down and sees the distant thicket move, Then stoops, and sousing on the quivering hare, Snatches his lifef ; and though we should doubt the testimony of A urelius Augustine, who says that " the eagle, when so high in the air as to be invisible to us, can perceive a hare lurking in an orchard, or a small fish swimming in the water J;" yet we cannot refuse to admit as unques- tionable facts the observations of such men as Wilson and Vaillant. Speaking of the white-headed eagle (Haliaetus leucocephalus, SAVIGNY), Wilson says, " from the ethereal heights to which he soars, looking abroad, at one glance, on an immeasurable expanse of forests, fields, lakes, and ocean, deep below him;" and of the osprey (Pandion haliaetus, SAVIGNY) he says, " down rapid as an arrow from heaven he descends, the roar of his wings reaching the ear as he disappears in the deep." M. Vaillant again says of his vociferous eagle (Haliaetus vocifer, SAVIGNY), that, "like the osprey and the white-tailed eagle (Haliaetus albicilla, SAVIGNY), it dives rapidly from a great height in the air upon a fish which it * Ornithology, by Ray, p. 57. f Iliad, xvii. I Apud Aldrovand, Oruith. \. 15. Amer, Ornith. v. 8 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. descries*." We have ourselves more than once seen the osprey dash down from a height of two or three hundred feet upon a fish of no considerable size, and which a man could with difficulty have perceived at the same distance f; but, in an instance elsewhere mentioned J, we observed the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetas, ALDROVAND), at Mehlem on the Rhine, beating about among the orchards, as if it were on the look out for a hare or a rabbit ; and if it were allowed to make a single instance like this overturn a general conclusion, we might oppose it to the testimonies already adduced. Ross, in his voyage to Baffin's Bay, proved that a man under favourable circumstances could see over the surface of the ocean to the extent of one hundred and fifty English miles. It is not probable that any animal exceeds this power of vision, though birds perhaps excel men and most quadrupeds in sharpness of sight. M. Schmidt threw, at a considerable distance from a thrush (Turdus musicus), a few small beetles, of a pale grey colour, which the unassisted human eye could not discover, yet the thrush observed them immediately and devoured them. The bottle-tit (Parus caudatus) flits with great quickness among the branches of trees, and finds on the very smooth bark its particular food, where nothing is perceptible to the naked eye, though insects can be detected there by the microscope. A very tame redbreast (Rhon- della rubecula) discovered crumbs from the height of the branch where it usually sat, at the distance of eighteen feet from the ground, the instant they were thrown down, and this by bending its head to one side, and using, of course, only one eye. At the same distance a quail (Coturnix major, BRISSON) dis- * Oiseaux d'Afrique, i. 18. , t J. R. | Architecture of Birds, p. 174. VISION. 9 covered, with one eye, some poppy seeds, which are very small and inconspicuous*. In looking at objects which differ in their distances, the eye has been supposed to undergo some change of its parts or relations. It is supposed, in a word, to do for itself what spectacles or glasses do for those who are very long-sighted, or who are very near- sighted. What this change is, has been the subject of minute investigation and of learned discussion; but still there is little with regard to it certainly known. Sir Charles Bell is somewhat doubtful of the fact of the alleged change in the eye, or, at least, he thinks it much less than has been conjectured. He is therefore inclined to ascribe what takes place, in look- ing at near and distant objects, in a great measure to attention. We can attend at pleasure to a letter of a word, to the whole word, or to the page of a book, in the same way as we can attend to a distant object, while we overlook those which are nearly on a line with it but nearer f. The mechanical effect produced by thus directing the attention, Sir Charles Bell does not attempt to trace. In a note, however, on the iris, he states a fact of which he might have taken advantage. When a cat is roused to attention, as by the scratching of a mouse, the pupils of her eyes dilate, ; and the same thing occurs when she struggles to get loose from your hands }. Several ingenious experiments were made by Dr. T. Young to discover the alleged changes in the eyeball. He forced upon the ball of the eye the ring of a key, so as to cause by its pressure a luminous spot, and, looking at objects of different distance, he *Blicken en den Haushalt der Natur, p. 26, 1826. f Bell's Anat. Ft. ii. B. i. 11. vol iii. p. 334. I See also Fontana, Dei noti dell' Iride, ii. 17. 10 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. expected the spot would become greatly larger ; but, on the contrary, it remained the same. In another experiment, he placed two candles, corresponding to the extent of nerve of the eye, and then made the highest change of its focus, expecting that, in conse- quence, the outer candle would appear to move away from him ; but in this also he was disappointed *. On the assumption of a change in the eye, several suppositions have been made concerning the nature of that change, most, if not all, of which are liable to objections not easily repelled. We shall briefly advert to the chief of these opinions. They refer to a change in the globe of the eye, in the cornea, in the iris, in the ciliary ring, and in the crystalline. Ac- cording to the first of these, the globe of the eye is compressed or relaxed by the surrounding muscles of the eyeball, in order to render the axis of the globe longer or shorter. But were this so the retina would be puckered up into folds ; and, besides, we should be more conscious of the change, inasmuch as the muscles of the eye are voluntary f. It was the opinion of Monro, that the change partly arose from the varied pressure of the eyelids upon the ball, and he made several experiments to prove this. He kept his eyelids wide asunder, and attempted to read a book while he held it so near that the letters were indistinct. He could not read it, in these circumstances ; but, without moving his head or the book, and bringing his eyelids within a fourth of an inch from each other, he found he could read dis- tinctly J. Sir Charles Bell, however, on keeping the eyelids open, and using flat camel-hair pencils, as a substitute for the eyelashes, found the same effect ; *Phil. Trans. 1793180] ; Medical Liter, p. 98-9. fHosack, Phil. Trans. 1794, p. 196; Knox, Edinb. Trans, x, 50. $ Three Treatises on the Eye. VISION. 11 and concluded, that it was the modification of the light by the eyelashes and not the compression of the eye which took place. M. Jurine's theory is, that the cornea is com- pressed and rendered more convex by the contrac- tion of the iris. To render this plausible, he sup- poses that there is a muscular ring- round the iris, which contracts on looking at near objects, but that, when looking at more distant ones, it relaxes, and the cornea springs back, by its elasticity, to its primary place. But, not to mention that this mus- cular ring of the iris cannot be demonstrated, we know that the iris is not fixed in the cornea at. all, but in the inflexible white of the eye. That the cornea, however, is affected in some degree, seems to have been proved by Mr. Ramsden. He invented an apparatus, by which the head was accurately fixed, and a miscroscope adapted to observe the changes in the eye whilst observing near and distant objects. From very nice experiments, made with this appa- ratus, it was found that the cornea moved the eight- hundredth part of an inch from the nearest point of distinct vision, to a distance of ninety feet*. Sir Everard Home has attempted to explain this from the connection of the cornea with the muscles. He found that they are inserted into the white coat, about an eighth of an inch from the cornea ; and that therefore their compression of the eyeball will force the humours outwards, and thus push out the cornea. Not content with this, he detached the outer layer of the cornea along with the muscles, and even conceived that the muscles spread over the cornea. This, as Dr. Monro remarks, must destroy the supposition of the cornea's being moved outwards by the muscles, as their contraction would draw it inwards. It is another opinion, that the iris produces the * Nicholson's Journ, 4to. i. 303, &c. 12 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. adaptation of the eye to distance by its muscularity or extension, its vessels being injected to extend it, and emptied to contract it. This is also mere supposition. The muscular power of the fringes of the ciliary ring in drawing the crystalline forwards or backwards is another supposition, as is proved by the want of contractile power in these fringes, the very point on which the opinion is founded. We have not a doubt it is by the eye alone that the carrier pigeon (Columba tabellaria, RAY) performs those extraordinary aerial journeys which have from the earliest ages excited astonishment. We have frequently witnessed the experiment made with other pigeons of taking them to a distance from the dove- cot, expressly to observe their manner of rinding their way back, and we feel satisfied that their proceedings are uniformly the same. On being let go from the bag, in which they have been carried in order to conceal from their notice the objects on the road, they dart off on an irregular excursion, as if it were more to ascertain the reality of their freedom than to make an effort to return. When they find themselves at full liberty, they direct their flight in circles round the spot whence they have been liberated, not only increasing the diameter of the circle at every round, but rising at the same time gradually higher. This is continued as long as the eye can discern the birds, and hence we conclude that it is also continued after we lose sight of them, a constantly increasing circle being made, till they ascertain some known object enabling them to shape a direct course*. It is not a little interesting to contrast the proceedings just described with those of a pigeon let off from a balloon elevated abo've the clouds. Instead of rising in circles like the former, the balloon pigeon drops perpendicularly down like a plummet, till it is able to * J. R. The Carrier Pigeon (Columba tabellaria). VISION. 13 recognise some indications of the earth below, when it begins to wheel round in a descending spiral, increasing in diameter for the evident purpose of surveying its locality and discovering some object previously known by which to direct its flight. The rapidity with which the carrier pigeon per- forms long journeys may perhaps be adduced as an objection to this explanation. M. Antoine, for example, tells us that a gentleman of Cologne, having business to transact at Paris, laid a wager of fifty Napoleons ( . In consequence of the rapidity with which birds traverse the air, extent and acuteness of vision appear to be indispensable, in order to direct them in their flight. Had they indeed been formed with eyes like the mole (Talpa lucida, C. BONAPARTE), incapable of seeing more than a few inches' dis- * Mem. PHist. des Animaux f Montbeillard, Oiseaux, Prelim. VISION. 21 tance, they would have been in constant danger of dashing against every intervening obstacle. " In- deed/' says Buflbn, " we may consider the celerity with which an animal moves as a just indication of the perfection of its vision. A bird, for instance, that shoots swiftly through the air, must undoubtedly see better than one which slowly describes a tortuous tract. Among quadrupeds, again, the sloths have a very limited sight." It may accordingly be inferred, that birds have more precise ideas than slow-moving caterpillars, of motion and its accompanying circum- stances, such as those of relative velocity, extent of country, the proportional height of eminences, and the various inequalities of hill and dale, mountain and valley. Our bird's-eye views, of which the accurate execution is so tedious and difficult, give but a very imperfect picture of the relative inequality of the sur- faces which they represent ; but birds can choose the proper stations^ can successively traverse a field in all directions, and with one glance comprehend the whole. On the other hand, the quadruped knows only the spot where it feeds, its valley, its moun- tain, or its plain ; but it has no conception of expanse of surface, no idea of immense distances, and no desire to push forward its excursions *. The eye of birds, it is worthy of remark, besides being peculiar in structure, is also greatly larger than in most other animals in proportion to the bulk of the head. According to M. Petit, the ball of the eye in a female eagle was, at its greatest width, an inch and a half in diameter ; that of the male was three lines less ; that of an ibis, six lines ; of a stork, four times larger; that of the cassowary was four times larger than its cornea, being an inch and a half in diameter, while the cornea was only three lines f. * Montbeillard, Oiseaux, Prelim. f M6m. I'Hist, des Animaux, 1726-36, 22 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. Eyes of the Eagle, showing their great size in proportion to the head. The mere bulk of the eye, however, is rather a fallacious test to trust to ; for several birds, in which the globe of the eye is large, have very weak sight, particularly in the daytime, such as the woodcock and the owls. The woodcock (Scolopax Gallinago, RAY) has very large, prominent eyes, but it cannot support a strong light, and sees best during twilight ; and, as Colonel Montagu remarks, its eyes seem to be peculiarly calculated for collecting the faint rays of light in the darkened vales and sequestered wood- lands, during nocturnal excursions, thus enabling it VISION. 23 to avoid trees and other obstacles*. It is probable, indeed, that the proverbial stupidity of the bird arises from this weakness of sight. Like the owl, indeed, its motions are much more agile and lively at night- fall and dawn than at any other time ; and so strong is this propensity to action at the rise or descent of the sun, that woodcocks when kept in a room are observed to flutter about regularly every morning and evening, while during the day they only trip on the floor without attempting to fly. The stone-curlew (CEdicnemus crepitans, TEM- MINCK) differs from the woodcock particularly in this, that though its eyes are similarly prominent, yet, if we may believe M. Montbeillard, its sight is very acute in the daytime, though he admits it can see best in the twilight. The prominence of its eyes enables it to see behind as well as before, and it is with difficulty therefore that it can be approached f. Paley justly remarks that *' what is gained by the largeness or prominence of the globe of the eye is width in the field of vision.'* With respect to owls, as well as most night-prowling animals, the eye is unquestionably very sensible. Of the barred owl (Strix nebulosa, GMELIN) Audubori says, its " power of sight during the day seems to be rather of an equivocal character, as I once saw one alight on the back of a cow, which it left so suddenly afterwards, when the cow moved, as to prove to me that it had mistaken the object on which it had perched for something else. At other times I have observed that the approach of the grey squirrel inti- midated them, if one of these animals accidentally jumped on a branch close to them, although the owl destroys a number of them during twilight}." * Ornith. Diet. p. 562, 2d edit. f Oiseaux, Art. Le grand Pluvier. J Ornilh. Biography, p. 244. 24 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. M. Vaillant mentions a similar circumstance which he more than once observed in different species of owls, if they chanced to be roused from their lurking places by day, when instead of pursuing- small birds, which are their natural prey, they fled from them in fear *. Wilson says of the snowy owl (Stryx nyctea) that " the conformation of the eye forms a curious and interesting subject to the young anatomist. The globe of the eye is immoveably fixed in its socket by a strong, elastic, hard, cartilaginous case, in form of a truncated cone : this case being closely covered with a skin appears at first to be of one continued piece ; but on removing the exterior membrane it is found to be formed of fifteen pieces, placed like the staves of a cask, overlapping a little at the base or narrow end, and seem as if capable of being enlarged or contracted, perhaps by the muscular membrane in which they are encased." " In five other different species of owls," adds Wilson, " which I have since examined, I found nearly the same conformation of this organ, and exactly the same number of staves. The eye being thus fixed, these birds, as they view different objects, are always obliged to turn the head ; and nature has so excellently adapted their neck to this purpose, that they can with ease turn it round, without moving the body, in almost a complete circlet." In nocturnal birds, M. de Blainville remarks that the eye, besides being comparatively very large, is flat (comprime) both before and behind, while the transparent cornea is placed at the end of a sort of tube formed by the bony portion of the sclerotic. The retina is consequently comparatively very large and extended, and the iris also; while the mem- * Oiseaux d'Afrique, torn. i. t Amer, Ornith, iv. 56, 1st edit. VISION. 25 branes, being probably more soft and delicate, are more susceptible of impressions from a small quan- tity of light. The nictitating membrane is also very large, and the upper eyelid, unlike other birds, is moveable*. We have adverted to the method of catching larks by means of a looking-glass, referring to the remark- able curiosity of birds as the probable cause of their being attracted to the bright glass. Whether it is on a similar principle that ravens, jays, and magpies (Cormdas, LEACH) are fond of bright objects we have no means of deciding. In accordance with this view, a writer on Natural History says, " A looking-glass is a matter of great wonder to magpies. We once saw one placed on the ground where two were hopping about. One of them came up to it, stared at it in apparent wonder, hopped off to the other, and then both returned and spent at least ten minutes in nodding, chattering, and hopping about the glass V Colonel Montagu tells us he was ' assured by a gentleman of veracity, that his butler having missed a great many silver spoons and other articles, without being able to detect the thief for some time, at last observed a tame raven with one in his mouth, and watched him to his hiding-place, where he found more than a dozen J. ?> A similar story is told by Mrs. S. C. Hall of a raven kept a few years ago at Newhaven, an inn on the road between Buxton and Ashbourne. This bird had been taught to call the poultry when they fed, and could do it very well too. One day the table was set out for the coach-passengers ; the cloth was laid with the knives and forks, spoons, mats, and bread, and in that state was left some time, the room-door being shut, but the window open. The * Principes d'Anatomie Comparee. t Brit. Naturalist; ii. 216. $ Diet. p. 400. 26 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. raven had watched the operation very quietly, and, we may suppose, felt a strong ambition to do the like. When the coach was about arriving, and the dinner carried in, behold, the whole paraphernalia of the dinner-table had vanished ! It was a moment of consternation, silver spoons, knives, forks, all gone. But what was the surprise and amusement to see, through the open window, upon a heap of rubbish in the yard, the whole array carefully set out, and the raven performing the honours of the table to a numerous party of poultry which he had summoned about him, and was very consequentially regaling with bread*. M. Antoine tells us that there is an annual mass, called the magpie mass, said in the church of St. John en Greve, which arose from the following circum- stance. A magpie, indulging its propensity to carry off and conceal glittering objects, took a fancy to make free with the church plate, and in consequence thereof a maid servant was accused of the theft and delivered over to the hands of justice. The accused, according to the barbarous custom of that period, was put to the torture, and a confession of the crime being thus extorted, the poor girl was condemned to die. Six months after the lost plate was discovered behind a mass of tiles on an old house, where a tame magpie had concealed them and continued to add to the hoard. The mass was founded on account of the innocent girl who had fallen a victim to an execrable law t- This story was no doubt the origin of the well- known melo-drama, the Maid and the Magpie. The author of the British Naturalist tells us that he once saw 44 taken out of a magpie's nest, a crooked sixpence of which some village fair one had haply been despoiled, a tailor's thimble, two metal buttons, a small plated * Hort. Register, Jan. 1832, p. 332. f Auimaux Celebres, ii. 118 ; and Mercier, Tail, de Paris. VISION. 27 buckle, and three or four bits of broken crockery*." At the same time he exculpates the jackdaw (Corvus mo- nedula), for want of proof of a similar charge made against him. " At country churches," he says, " where it frequents the steeple, a situation to which it is very partial, we have heard it accused of a very profane theft : at those places in the north, a collection is made in a salver outside the door, and if a sixpence or a shilling finds its way among the copper donations, the jackdaw is accused of pouncing down and pur- loining it, but we have no proof against it f." The Bengal sparrow (Passer Bengalensis, KLEIN) seems to be equally fond of bright objects. We have elsewhere detailed its habit of studding its nest with fire-flies J ; and it is no doubt on the same principle that it is taught to perform certain feats. If a ring, for example, be dropped into a deep well, and a signal given to one of these birds, he will fly down with amazing celerity, catch the ring before it touches the water, and bring it to his master. Sir William Jones tells us that these birds are also, by way of frolic, taught to pluck off the gold ornaments from the head- dresses of ladies and bring them to their lovers. The celerity of the Bengal sparrow in catching the ring evidently depends as much upon quickness of vision as on rapidity of flight ; arid to this quickness we must attribute the difficulty often experienced by marksmen in shooting at certain species. " The divers (Colymbi) of Louisiana," says M. Dupratz, " when they see the fire of the touch-pan, dive so nimbly that the lead cannot hit them, for which rea- son they are called lead-eaters ." We have repeatedly seen the same quickness of eye exemplified in the cormorant (Carbo cormoranus, MEYER) of our own * Brit. Naturalist, p. 216. f Ibid. p. 229. I Architecture of Birds, p. 249-50. Hist, de U Louisiaue, ii. 115. D 3 28 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. seas ; for though approached with the greatest cau- tion, and when the bird has not manifested any fear but was skimming about on the water, the instant the powder flashed in the pan, it would dive down and escape the danger*. It may be worth mentioning that animals born with perfect eyes can use them the instant they enter the world. Sir James Hall, when making experiments on hatching, observed a chicken in the act of breaking through the shell, and just as it got out a spider began to run along the box, when the chicken darted forward, seized and swallowed it as adroitly as if it had been instructed by its mother. *J.R. CHAPTER II. HEARING OF BIRDS. THE effect of an accidental occurrence in giving undue importance to things not otherwise extraor- dinary, is strikingly exemplified in the instance of the geese which are reported to have saved the capitol of Rome. " The Gauls," says Livy, " having dis- covered that the rock Carmentalis was accessible, one night when it was pretty clear, sent a man to examine the way, without his arms which were afterwards handed to him. Others followed, lifting and assisting each other, according to the difficulties they encoun- tered in the ascent, till they reached the summit. They proceeded with so much silence, that neither the sentinels nor even the dogs, animals usually so vigilant as to be roused by the slightest noise, took any alarm. They did not however escape the notice of the geese, which, being sacred to Juno, had been fed by the Romans, notwithstanding the famine caused by the siege. This saved the capitol ; for, by their cackling arid beating their wings, they roused Marcus Manlius, a brave soldier and formerly consul, who, snatching up his arms and giving the alarm, flew to the ramparts, set upon the Gauls, and by precipitating one of them over the rocks terrified the rest so much that they threw down their arms*." Pliny accordingly infers from this circumstance (pro- bably a mere legend) that ** the goose is very vigilant and watchfull : witnesse the capitol of Rome, which * Hist, v, 47. 30 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. by the meanes of geese was defended and saved; whereas at the same time, through the default of dogs (which should have given warning) all had like to have bin lost*." Julian again tells us that the Gauls bribed the dogs of the capitol to silence with food, which the geese refused arid screamed outf; and hence it was inferred by Columella that geese are preferable to dogs for watching a farm J, while Vege- tius does not hesitate to assert that they are the most vigilant sentinels that can be planted in a besieged city. In this opinion most naturalists, from Al- bertus Magnus and Aldrovand down to Buffon and Bewick, concur. " It is certain," says the last, u that nothing can stir in the night, nor the least or most distant noise be made, but the geese are roused, and immediately begin to hold their cackling converse ; and, on the nearer approach of apprehended danger, they set up their more shrill and clamorous cries ||." From the incident in the Roman history alone, the goose has been rendered as famous for its quick- ness of hearing as the eagle for acuteness of vision ^f, though Caelius Rhodiginus thinks the wild boar may dispute the palm with it**, Other authors attribute the supposed vigilance of the goose to its acute smell ; and Lucretius adopting this opinion says, " The white goose, the preserver of the citadel of Romulus, scents the odour of man at a great distance ft 5 and Isidore echoes the same opinion JJ. But, whatever truth may be in the narratives given by Livy and /Elian, we are quite certain that, so far from possessing any superiority either in hearing or smelling, the goose is much inferior to many other * Hist. Nat. x. 22, by Holland. f De Animal, xii. 33. J De Re Rustica. De Re Militar. iv. 26. j| Birds, 293, ed. 1826. ^[ Gelli, Circe. ** Lect. Antiq. xx.' 1 ft De Rerum Natura/iv. H Etyraol. xii. 7. HEARING. 31 birds in these respects. This is easily proved by the simple experiment of trying the effect of various sounds upon the birds, taking care to have the cause thereof concealed from their view. We have, for example, caused a dog to bark behind a wall on the other side of which geese were feeding, without their appearing to take any notice of it, no more than they did when we shouted aloud on purpose to alarm them. When the dog, however, was brought into view, they took immediate alarm *. We should there- fore be inclined to infer that the hearing of the goose is by no means so very quick. The structure of the ear again would lead to the same conclusion ; although it does indicate quicker hearing than that of the duck, the cavity of the drum as well as other parts of the organ being much more capacious in the goose. Its smell also, though undoubtedly acute, as might at once be concluded from the capacity of the nostrils, is more adapted for ascertaining the quality of its food than for giving intimation of distant danger. Accordingly we never see a goose elevating its head and snuffing the air as dogs, deer, and other animals are observed to do, for the apparent purpose of discovering distant friends or enemies. We should therefore reject the explanation given by Lucretius and Isidore. The correct view of the matter, as it appears to us, was first hinted at by Albertus Magnus, who says the goose sleeps so lightly, that it is awakened by the least noise f. The profoundness of sleep indeed is found to be in proportion to the quantity of brain and the rapidity of circulation, and both these being in birds unfavourable to sleep, renders them very easily awakened J. The hearing also, according to M. Cabani, though it is not so "soon overpowered by * J, R. f Apud Aldrovandi Ornith. iii. 46. I Macnish, Philosophy of Sleep, p. 40. 32 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. sleep as sight, smell, and taste, is much more easily awakened, for a slight noise will often rouse a sleep- walker, who had borne an intense light on his unshut eyes, without seeming in the least to feel its in- fluence *. The structure of the ear in birds would lead us to conclude that they could not hear so quickly as other animals. It may be interesting to illustrate this by comparing the ear of birds with that of man. The outer shell, as we may term it, of our own ear projects a little forward, presenting five eminences and three cavities, the whole spread out into a sort of funnel, well adapted, from its windings, to collect the waves or pulses of sound afloat in the air around f. The substance also is carefully fitted for its office, being very sensible, and composed of a firm though elastic texture of gristle or cartilage, and not of unyielding bone, nor of soft fleshy muscle, though there are small muscles which stretch or relax it, as occasion may require. The skin which covers it is thin and dry, and is attached to the gristle below by a strong tissue that contains but a very small quantity of fat. Here is seen a great number of pellicles, which prepare and furnish the shining matter that gives to the skin its polish, and perhaps part of its flexibility. As many nerves and blood-vessels run through this part of the ear, it is thence rendered very sensible, and easily becomes red. The lap of the ear, possessed by no animal but man, is very different from the part which we have just described, being soft and flabby, and full of fat ; but this is perhaps intended to prevent the escape of the sound collected in the upper windings of the shell, when it has reached the entrance of the passage. We make this supposition on the principle that soft * Rapports du Phys. et Morale. f Himly, Biblioth. fur Ophthalmalogie, i. 6. HEARING. 33 substances, like the lap of the ear, are well Known to be bad conductors of sound. The utility of the external ear in making sound distinctly heard, may be demonstrated by a very simple experiment. Place the palms of the hands closely on the ears, so as to press the windings of the funnel flat to the temples, and the sounds which you hear, instead of being distinct, will be confused and humming, like the sound of running waters, or the distant murmur of a forest. A similar effect will be produced by interrupting the communication in any other way, as in the amusement well known to hildren of putting a univalve sea-shell to their ear produce, as they imagine, the sound of the sea- vaves breaking on the shore. It is worthy of remark, hat the external ears of Europeans are much more 'at, and lie closer to the temples, than in savage 34 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. nations ; a circumstance evidently caused by the dress worn in infancy, which cramps the outer ears of our children, and consequently injures the distinct- ness of hearing in after-life. M. Majendie, however, affirms, from experiment, that the removing of the external ear altogether does not injure hearing more than a few days, till the sufferer becomes accustomed to the new condition of the organ ; though we should think that this must depend on the age of the person. Some individuals have the power of moving the external ear, similar to what we observe in the lower animals, but this does not appear to improve or in- crease the hearing. Inside of the temporal bone, showing the position of the drum and bones of the Ear, surrounded by the mastoid cells. HEARING. 35 The windings and other inequalities of the outer ear meet in the narrowest part of the entrance, and the windings thus united take the form of a tube, which enters the bone of the temple, and is continued through it, till it reach the part called the drum (tympanum'). " Infants," says Smellie, " hear bluntly, because the bones of their ears are soft and carti- laginous ; and, of course, the tremulations excited in them, by the motions of the air, are comparatively weak. Young children, accordingly, are extremely fond of noise : it rouses their attention, and conveys to them the agreeable sensation of sound ; but feeble sounds are not perceived, which gives infants, like deaf persons, the appearance of inattention, or rather of stupidity*" The Tympanum and Bones of the Ear. The skin which lines the entrance tube of the ear (meatus externus) is extremely thin and delicate, and is reflected over the drum so as to cover it. This tube is oblique and winding, to prevent (it may be) the sound from being reflected from the drum into the air again without producing the sensation of hearing, which would, to a certain extent, be the consequence were the tube straight. * Philosophy of Natural History, i. 268, 8vo. / 36 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. At the bottom of this passage there is a thin parchment-like skin, stretched obliquely across for the reception and reverberation of the sounds propagated thither from the air: this is the drum, which is covered, as we have seen, in the same way as the tube. The middle layer under the drum is quite transparent. It is remarkable that the whole membrane is braced like the head of a drum ; but, in place of the strings of the drum, the membrane of the ear is stretched and kept tight by the threads of a muscle. So, at least, it is conjectured by Sir Everard Home, from analogy; for it is only in large animals, such as the elephant, that these threads have been discovered. Bones of the Ear. There is placed behind the drum a chain of small bones or springs, so arranged as to hinge upon one another ; and when one moves all the others follow, in consequence of their connection with appropriate muscles. The first of these bones (malleus), which is shaped like a hammer, is in contact with the middle of the drum, and when a sound strikes upon the drum, it is supposed to cause the muscles attached to the bone to contract and pull it, while this move- ment consequently reacts upon the drum. When the motion has been thus originated, it is plausibly conjectured to be communicated in succession to the other three bones of the chain, the last of which (stapes) has the form of a stirrup with a solid base, and plays like the key of a flute upon a hole or opening (fenestra ovalis) that leads to several chan- nels or passages farther inward. The internal ear HEARING. 37 has several of these passages, which are much in the form of wind instruments of the convoluted kind, being full of turns and windings like a French horn. From their intricacy they are called the labyrinth. Sections of the Cochlea. External view of the Cochlea and semicircular Canal. Section of Cochlea and semicircular Canals. The labyrinth is filled with a fluid of a watery consistence, which being in contact with the nerve, which is spread in numberless branches over its inner surface, is conceived to act a similar part in the conveyance of sounds, as the fluid in the mouth and 38 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. the nose in conveying tastes and smells. The whole labyrinth may be said to consist of three parts the vestibule or oval gallery, on the door of which the stirrup bone, as we have said, plays, the canals in form of a half circle leading from the vestibule, and the cochlea or snail-shell, so called from its shape, with which also the vestibule communicates. Distribution of Nerves in semicircular Canals. Distribution of Nerves in Cochlea and semicircular Canals. HEARING, 39 It is well known to musicians, that a violin or common drum will not sound well without a hole in it, to cause the sound produced to come with more force by a communication with the air without. The sound indeed would otherwise be imprisoned in the instrument, and would be heard muffled and confined by the surrounding wood. The same would be the case in the ear. The sound transmitted from the drum to the bony spring's, and by them to the parts of the labyrinth, would be smothered in its passage almost as soon as it had passed the drum. To prevent this, there is a contrivance exactly like the hole in the common drum and in the violin. For this purpose, behind the drum of the ear, a tube opens, and runs by the side of the labyrinth, widening as it goes, till it ends in a trumpet-like opening behind the curtain (velum pendulum palati), which separates the nostrils from the mouth. It is named from its describer, Eustachius, the Eustachian tube *. It is so indispensable to perfect hearing, that when it is in any way obstructed there always follows some degree of deafness. When it is opened also by opening the mouth, we hear better than when the mouth is shut, the orifice of the tube being thereby enlarged, an observation which did not escape Shakspeare : I saw a smith stand with his hammer thus, The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool, With open mouth swallowing a tailor's newsf. Such is the ear of man : but in birds it differs in many particulars. Instead, for instance, of the ex- ternal shell .(concha), with its windings terminating in a funnel, there is only a circular tuft of feathers in some species, which is besides riot found in many others,, " Night birds alone," says Baron Cuvier, * Eustachius de Auditus Organ. f King John. E3 40 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. " have a large external ear, which, nevertheless, is not so prominent as that of quadrupeds ; this opening is generally covered with barbed feathers, more fringed than the others*." With respect to the ex- ternal opening of the ear " in the owl,'* says Grew, " that perches on a tree, and hearkens after the prey beneath her, it is produced farther out above than it is below, for the better reception of the least sound J." It appears to us, however, that the large circle of feathers, remarkable in many of the owls, is more fitted for producing a convergence of the rays of light than the pulses of sound, inasmuch as the very soft feathers of which they are composed are among the very worst conductors of sound. The same thing may be said of the smaller tuft of feathers immediately around the ear itself. Head of the Horned Owl (Stria Otus}. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt about the peculiar conformation of the bones of the external * Regne Animal, i. 305, edit. 1829. t Cosmologia Sacra, i. 5. HEARING. 41 ear in owls. Speaking of the owl, Dr. Farrar says, " He never hunts or goes abroad for food except in twilight ; and even then, when in an old building-, where his prey abounds, he will be seen perched majestically and silently upon any projecting sub- stance whatever. Thus elevated above the ground, sounds indicating his prey must ascend, and are received by the arched, overhanging, and concave external bony structure of his ear. This function being roused, his head is naturally turned into the direction whence the sounds emanate ; arid he is thus enabled to discover, if not always to seize his prey*." Skull of the Horned Owl ; a, the auditory canal. "In a fox," says Grew, a that scouteth underneath the prey at roost, it (the ear) is for the same reason produced farther out below. In the polecat, which hearkens straight forward, it is produced behind, for the taking of a forward sound. Whereas in a hare, which is very quick of hearing, and thinks of nothing but being pursued, it is supplied with a bony tube, which, as a natural acoustic (ear-trumpet), is so directed backwards as to receive the smallest and most distant sound that comes behind herf." Dr. Farrar has investigated these circumstances with still more minuteness than Grew, from whom he probably took the hint. In the skull of the hare, he tells us, * Mag. of Nat. Hist. iv. 12. f Cosmologia Sacra, i. 5. 42 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. when it " is placed horizontally before you, the tubulated bony portion of the external ear is seen nearly half an inch in length, and a quarter of an inch in diameter, pointing backwards and upwards at an angle of 45 or thereabouts. To this tube in the living animal is attached the external ear, which is moved in various directions to suit the purposes of the animal. This animal is a pursued one ; and, as such, is indebted for its safety to a quick perception of danger by means of its external senses. The least remarkable of these is certainly not that of hearing: viewed externally, we find long open ears, for the most part inclining backwards ; but also occa- sionally forward, as well as laterally. These are moved in various attitudes by muscles placed for that purpose; and thus serve as excellent media for collecting sounds, and transmitting them through the bony portion of the canal to the internal ear. That these organs are valuable adjuvants to another sense (that of sight) no one will doubt, especially when he recollects that animals of this class, although possessing a very wide expanse of sight, yet do not enjoy an equally distant one, which is not to be wondered at when we look at the diminutive stature they exhibit ; yet for this loss they are compen- sated by having the sense of hearing very acute from a number of points, though much more from behind than in any other direction. Many persons contend that the hare cannot distinguish sounds im- mediately before her, which is not unlikely when we consider the bony structure of the external ear ; however, this is not absolutely necessary, as her pro- minent eyes scarcely allow any object to approach her without some part of its shadow being depicted upon the retina, and thus communicating the alarm to the timid animal. HEARING. 43 Skull of the Hare; a, the auditory canal. ' u As a contrast to the situation of the auditory tube in the hare, I shall now mention that of the polecat, which animal is, as is well known, a pur- suing- one ; consequently requiring its external senses, or rather the communications for conveying impres- sions to them, as forward as possible. This animal has its external auditory tube similar in length and diameter to the hare's placed at an angle of 45, but pointing from behind, in a- direction downwards and forwards ; in fact, the very opposite to the posi- tion described in the hare. When we consider the habits of this animal, and behold the structure con- taining one sense, acting in concert with and sup- porting another still more valuable to the animal's Skull of the Polecat; a, the auditory tube. 44 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. existence, we cannot but wonder at the excellence of arrangements that provides for wants which mere human ingenuity can only comprehend, but could never supply. " From this tube being placed very forward, we should naturally conclude that this animal's sense of hearing is necessarily much less acute from behind than before. This supposition I am inclined strongly to support from the following circumstance : A farmer in the neighbourhood had his poultry disturbed on several successive nights, but could not make out the case till one day he discovered near his residence a couple of these vermin gamboling in a very frolicsome manner. Without disturbing them, he returned has- tily to his house, got his gun loaded, and then went back to look for his visitors. Approaching them cautiously from behind, he was enabled to come within a very few yards of them He levelled his gun, but it missed fire. This occurred five or six times without a single spark being elicited from his flint ; and notwithstanding all this hammering in their rear, the animals never were in the least alarmed. Fortune, however, at last favoured him, and he was enabled to obtain one of them ; but the other made its escape. " I was much puzzled with his recital of the cir- cumstance ; and could not in any manner satisfactorily account for it, till I examined its skull minutely (having obtained it for a skeleton), and then discovered its auditory canal situated in the position before men- tioned. " This investigation satisfied my mind that though this animal may hear sounds behind it, yet they are only heard imperfectly ; otherwise it must have taken alarm at the many attempts to fire the gun. Applying this analogy to the hare, we may suppose that this animal, whose external tube is placed backward, would not distinguish sounds very distinctly in front of HEARING. 45 her. Many facts in the Natural History of the hare might be produced to support this idea ; but one will suffice: a hare, pursued by greyhounds along a turnpike road, was seen by a woman approaching her immediately in front ; she knelt down, and the hare ran fairly into her apron, which was stretched out to receive him. This circumstance clearly proves that poor puss was much more occupied from dangers behind, than those which so unfortunately were placed before her. " The next animal is one which, although predatory in its habits, does not obtain its prey by pursuit, but steals upon it unawares ; and, as such, is much in- debted to the excellence of its outward perceptions for the ease with which it seizes its victims. " This animal is the fox. On examination we find the external portion of his auditory structure is not tubulated in a similar manner to the two former instances ; but, on the contrary, is expanded princi- pally from behind, in a forward direction, into nearly a circular aperture. This opening is very well adapted, when the head is thrown laterally and upwards, for receiving sounds from above. His prey is usually met with in hen-roosts, or perched on trees ; and his mode of taking them by surprise induces him to approach them stealthily. Hence arises the necessity of sounds indicating their immediate presence being transmitted to the sensorium as soon as possible. The moment his ear indicates his prey above him, his eye is immediately turned in that direction ; and thus, if within his reach, is very speedily captured. What more beautiful provision for this animal's neces- sities could be met with than those with which he appears to be provided? His ears first give the indication of the presence of his prey, and his eye instantly contemplates the objectof his pursuit*." # Mag. of Nat. Hist. iv. 12. 46 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. Skull of the Fox ; a, the auditory hole. It has been well remarked by the earliest authors, that birds are not provided like other animals with an external ear, because their passage through the air* would have been obstructed by long ears like those of the hare or the ass. In owls there is a peculiar valve placed at the opening-, partly of a membranous, and partly of a muscular structure, which has by some authors been deemed analogous to the human ear, and it is around this that Structure of the Ear of the Owl. *Derham, Phys. Theol. b, iv. c. 3 ; 1 ; Savart, Ann. cle Chim. xxvi. 5. HEARING. 47 the tuft of feathers already mentioned is arranged*, so as to form a large funnel, which is brought into view when the two folds or lips are separated. The outer opening is very large, parted into two chambers by a square bone, and forming a considerable upright slit in form of an S, extending as high as the head itself |. The drum of the ear in birds bulges outwards in a somewhat convex form, and consists of two mem- branes. In order to support, distend, or relax the exterior membrane, there is a cartilaginous organ stretching from the side of the passage almost to the middle of the membrane ; while there is another cartilage divided into three branches, the middle one of which, being the longest, is joined to the top of the cartilaginous organ before mentioned, and assists in bearing up the exterior membrane. The cartilage joins the top of the columella (pssiculum audit us), which is a very fine, thin, light, bony tube, the bottom of which expands into a plate (sperculum) corresponding to the base of the stirrup-bone in the Drum of the Ear in Birds. (Enlarged from Derham's figure.) * Elumenbacb, Comp. Anat. 263. t Blainville, p. 532. F 48 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. human ear, and like it fitting the oval hole, to which it is braced all round by a very slender membrane*. M. De Blainville, in opposition to most other comparative anatomists, and in conformity to the doctrine of minute analogies now pursued on the Continent, endeavours to show that the chain of bones found in the human ear is equally to be found in r birds, though in order to make out this, he is under the necessity of confessing that, while " the chain of small bones is complete," these bones con- sist not of bony substance, but of cartilage, sub- cartilage, and even of muscles j\ With reference to this speculative theory upon the subject of the ear of birds, Sir Charles Bell, justly remarks, that " the only effect of this hypothesis is to make us lose sight of the principle which ought to direct us in the observation of such curious structures, as well as of the conclusions to which an unbiassed mind would come. The matter to be ex- plained is simply this : the chain of bones in the ear, which is so curiously adapted in the mammalia, to convey the vibrations of the membrane of the tympanum to the nerve of hearing, is not found in the organ of hearing of birds ; but there is substi- tuted a mechanism entirely different. They choose to say that the incus, one of the bones of the chain, is wanting in the bird. Where shall we find it? they ask. Here it is in the apparatus of the jaw or mandible ; in that bone which is called 05 qua- dratum. I believe that the slight and accidental re- semblance which this bone in the bird has to the incus is the real origin of this fancy. Let us follow ajuster mode of reasoning, and see how this hypothesis ob- scures the beauty of the subject. The first step of the investigation ought to be to inquire into the fact, *Cuvier, Lecons d'Anat. Comp. Blumenb.; Derham ; Phys. Theol. vii. 2, note d. f Principes, p, 527. HEARING. 49 if there be any imperfection in the hearing of birds. That is easily answered : the hearing of birds is most acute ; the slightest noise alarms ; and the night- ingale, or other bird of song, in a summer evening, will answer to the note of his rival when he is out of hearing. We have next to observe the imperfection in the organ the want of an external ear ; which, were it present, would be at variance with all that we have most to admire in the shape of the bird and the direction of the feathers, as conducing to its rapid passage through the air. With this obvious defect of the external ear, can we admit that the internal ear is also imperfect, notwithstanding the very remarkable acuteness of hearing, which we know to result from this internal structure, and from it alone? Now we we do, in fact, find a different structure in the ear of birds, but yet nothing is wanting. The columella is a shaft of bone of exquisite delicacy, which is extended from the outward membrane of the ear to the laby- rinth, or proper seat of the nerve of hearing. It oc- cupies the place and office of the chain of four bones which belong to the ear of mammalia. We have no authority, however, for affirming that the incus is here wanting, more than any other bone of the chain ; and if it be said that the os quadratum is the missing incus, why should not we find in the oviparous rep- tiles, where there is a columella in the ear, an os qua- dratum in the jaw ? " From this mode of inquiry we find that the sense of hearing is enjoyed in an exquisite degree in birds; that the organ of the sense is not imperfect, but is adapted to a new construction, and a varied appara- tus, suited to the condition of the bird ; and that there is no accidental dislocation, or substitution of some- thing less perfect than what we find in other classes of animals*." * Bridgewater Treatise on the Hand, p. 139. 50 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. The internal parts of the ear in birds are much less complicated than in man and quadrupeds ; but, \vithout going- into the minute particulars of difference, we shall only mention one peculiarity, which is, that while the chamber of the drum communicates with three large cavities in the adjacent bony plates, these again communicate by an equal number of openings with the drum in the same side, one of them extending over the skull to its fellow on the other side. Sir Everard Home has observed a similar kind of com- munication by means of the cells of the skull in the elephant*. We have little doubt that the provision made for rendering birds more buoyant, consisting of air-vessels extended from the lungs throughout the body, and even to the bones themselves, contributes to render the vibrations of the air more distinct, muffled as they must always partially be by the feathers of the bird. The faculty of imitating sounds possessed by certain birds, proves that their hearing must be exceedingly delicate ; and though we suspend our belief of the great musical talents which some birds are said to have derived from education, we find many well-attested instances of a delicate ear in species by no means remarkable for vocal execution. Madame Piozzi gives an account of a tame pigeon, which answered by gesticulation to every note of a harp- sichord. As often as she began to play, the pigeon hurried to the concert with every indication of rapturous delight. A false note produced in the bird evident tokens of displeasure, and if frequently repeated, it lost all temper and tore her hands -f. A no less remarkable instance of the effect of music on a pigeon is related by Lockman in his reflections upon operas, prefixed to his musical drama * Comp. Anat. f Letters from France and Italy. HEARING. 51 of Rosalinda. Being at the house of a Cheshire gentleman, whose daughter was a fine performer on the harpsichord, he observed a pigeon, which, when- ever the young lady played the song of " Speri si" in Handell's opera of Admetus, would descend from an adjacent dove-cot to the room window where she sat, and listen with every indication of pleasure till the song was finished, when it uniformly returned to the dove-cot. M. Le Cat, holding the theory that the cochlea or snail-shell of the ear is the organ which perceives harmony and which is wanting in birds, yet admits birds to be the most musical of all animals, and to have an exquisite hearing, " because," he says, " their heads are almost entirely sonorous like a bell, owing to their not being involved in complicated muscles, as are the heads of other animals. Hence must they necessarily be agitated by the sounds which present themselves. The labyrinth of their ear, being very sonorous, is sufficient for this end. The most simple grot will echo back a musical air ; but if to this excellent disposition of hearing in birds nature had added the cochlea, they would have been much more sensible of harmonious modulations. They would have had a passion for harmony, as almost all animals have for gormandizing; which is not the case. For one ought to recollect that the musical quality pecu- liar to birds, proceeds less from the delicacy and taste of their ear, than from the disposition of their throat. They, furthermore, in this particular, resemble musi- cians, who give pleasure to others, without partaking of any themselves. We hear a dog howl, we see him weep, as it were, at a tune played upon a flute ; when, on the contrary, this animal is all alive in the field at the sound of a French horn. The horse takes fire at the sound of a trumpet, in spite of the thick mus- cular texture his auditory organ is encompassed with. F3 52 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. Without the cochlea these animals are provided with, one would by no means discover in them this sensi- bility for harmony. We should rather find them, in this respect, as stupid as fish, which are destitute of the cochlea, as well as birds ; but without the advan- tages which birds have of a head sufficiently disen- gaged, sufficiently sonorous, to supply this defect*." For the sake of illustration we may remark, that many other animals, besides birds, are observed to be singularly affected with certain sounds. Amongst these the elephant is not a little remarkable, though Sir Everard Home is disposed to think it does not possess a musical ear. Suetonius, for example, tells us, that the Emperor Domitian had a troop of ele- phants disciplined to dance to the sound of music, and that one of them who had been beaten for not having his lesson perfect, was observed, the night after- wards, practising by himself in a meadow f. Out- rageous bulls have likewise, in several instances, been calmed into gentleness by music. Of this musical feeling in oxen Dr. Southey mentions a very singular instance. " The carts," he says, " of Corunna make so loud and disagreeable a creaking with their wheels for want of oil, that the governor once issued an order to have them greased ; but it was revoked on the petition of the carters, who stated that the oxen liked the sound, and would not draw without its music J." Even fish, upon better authority than the old story of Amphion and the dolphin, are said to have shown signs of being affected by music ; and seals, we are told, have crowded to hear a violin . " Seals," says Valerius Flaccus, " delight in song||," which Sir Walter Scott has rendered, * Le Cat, on the Senses, Eng. Trans. f Hist. Cses. xii. See also Menageries, ii. 70-1. I Letters from Spain. Laing's Voyage to Spitzbergen, II Gaudebant carmine Phocee. HEARING. 53 Rude Heiskar's seals, through surges dark, Will long pursue the minstrel's bark. In Germany they take the shad (Alosa clupea, MERRET) by means of nets, to which bows of wood, hung with a number of little bells, are attached in such a manner as to chime in harmony when the nets are moved. The shad, when once attracted by the sound, will not attempt to escape while the bells continue to ring. ./Elian says the shad is allured by castanets : and so delicate is the ear of this fish re- ported to be, that the sound of thunder terrifies them to death, and numbers are annually found thus killed on the Rhine and the Moselle*. Numerous other instances of a similar kind are recorded, upon authority far from being * destitute of respectability, though they may somewhat startle the faith of the incredulous. An officer, confined in the B a stile at Paris, begged the governor to permit him the use of his lute, to soften his con- finement by the harmonies of his instrument. At the end of a few days this modern Orpheus, playing on his lute, was greatly astonished to see frisking out of their holes great numbers of mice, and de- scending from their woven habitations crowds of spiders, which formed a circle about him while he continued playing upon his instrument. At first, he was petrified with astonishment, when, having ceased to play, the assembly of animals immediately broke up. Having a great dislike to vermin, it was two days before he ventured to touch the instrument ; but having mustered courage to conquer his dislike, he recommenced his concert, when the assembly was by far more numerous than at first; and, in the course of farther time, he found himself surrounded by a hundred of these animal amateurs. * Physicse Curiosee, [>. 1261. 54 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. M. Marville has given the following curious details on this subject. Doubting, he tells us, the truth of those who say it is natural for us to love music, especially the sound of instruments, and that beasts themselves are touched with it, being one day in the country he made his observations, while a man was playing on a conch shell (trojnpe marine), upon a cat, a dog, a horse, an ass, a hind, cows, small birds, and some barn-door fowls in a yard under the window on which he was leaning. He did not perceive that the cat was in the least affected, and he even judged by her air that she would have given all the musical instruments in the world for a mouse, for she slept all the while unmoved in the sun ; the horse stopped short from time to time before the window, raising his head up now and then, as he was feeding on the grass ; the dog continued for above an hour seated on his hind legs, looking steadfastly at the player ; and the ass did not discover the least indication of his being touched, eating his thistles very peaceably ; the hind lifted up her large wide ears, and seemed very attentive ; the cows slept a little, and after gazing awhile, went forward ; some little birds which were in an aviary, and others on trees and bushes, almost tore their little throats with singing ; but the cock, minding his hens, and the hens, solely employed in scraping in a neighbouring dunghill, did not show in any manner that they took the least pleasure in hearing the music. Sir William Jones, in his curious dissertation on the musical modes of the Hindoos, says, " I have been assured by a credible eye-witness that two wild antelopes used often to come from their woods to the place where a more savage beast Sirajuddaulah entertained himself with concerts, and that they listened to the strains with an appearance of pleasure, HEARING. 55 till the monster, in whose soul there was no music, shot one of them to display his skill in archery *." The anatomical structure and conformation which constitutes what is called a musical ear, remains hitherto unknown ; but if we may judge from the songs of birds, it must differ considerably in them from what it does in man, as their musical scale cannot be adapted to any of ours ; though Mrs. Piozzi's account of the musical pigeon, as well as the fact of bulfinches and other birds learning to pipe waltzes and other airs, proves that they can accom- modate their ear to scales differing from the one in which they naturally sing. Independently of structure and conformation, no very satisfactory explanation has, so far as we know, been given of what is called a musical ear. M. Le Cat says the ear of a good musician is a sort of prism, which separates and distinguishes the tones combined in harmony, as the glass prism separates the colours of light. But this, we think, is no less fanciful, than a comparison between sound and co- lours ; scarlet, for example, being compared to the sound of a trumpet, as was done by a blind man because he had no other means of comparison. One of the most singular and ingenious accounts which we have met with of the peculiarity of a musical ear, is given by Dr. Thomas Brown of Edinburgh, in his Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind. He thinks, because people who are not musical can distinguish grave and acute, low and loud sounds, as well as a musician, that the peculiarity must lie in the comparison of successive sounds. It may prove interesting to quote his own words. " If the want of a musical ear," says Dr. Brown, " had involved either a general defect of hearing, or a general slowness of discrimination in other cases * Asiatic Researches. 56 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. of nice diversity, the wonder would not have been great. But those who are without ear for music perceive as readily as others the faintest whisper ; they distinguish like them the faintest shades of difference in mere articulations of sound, which con- stitute the varieties of language, not the articulation only, but the differences also of the mere tones of affection or displeasure, grief or gaiety, which are so strikingly analogous to the varied expressions of musical feeling ; and their power of discrimination in every other case in which the judgment can be exercised is not less perfect. Nay, to increase still more the difficulty, they are often as sensible as others of the beauty of series of tones of a different kind; and some of our best poets and declaimers, who, of course, must have had a quick discernment of metrical rhythm, and of the melody of execution, have yet been incapable of distinguishing the musical relations of sounds, as reciprocally high or low, the melody that results from them in certain succession, and the harmony or the discord of their union. " That it depends chiefly, or perhaps entirely, on the structure or state of the mere corporeal organ of hearing, which is of a kind, it must be remembered, peculiarly complicated, and therefore susceptible of great original diversity in the parts, and the relations of parts that form it, is very probable ; though the difference of the separate parts themselves, or of their relations to each other, may, to the mere eye, be so minute as never to be discovered by dissection, thus leaving to every future race of inquirers the same difficulty which has perplexed ourselves, and the same difficulty of overcoming it. " In the sense of vision, we may remark, there is a species of defect very analogous to the want of musical ear ; a defect which consists in the diffi- culty, or rather the incapacity, of distinguishing some HEARING. 57 colours from each other, and colours which, to general observers, seem of a very opposite kind. As the want of musical ear implies no general defect, in like manner it is to be found in persons who are yet capable of distinguishing with perfect accuracy the form and the greater and less brilliancy of the coloured object ; and we may remark too, in confirmation of the opinion, that the want of musical ear depends on causes not mental but organic ; that, in this analogous case, some attempts, not absolutely un- successful, have been made, to explain the apparent confusion of colours, by certain peculiarities of the external organ of sight. Though the one case, how- ever, were to throw no light upon the other, it is still gratifying to philosophers to have a case at all analo- gous, to which, when they are weary of considering what has baffled all their endeavours to explain it, they may have the comfort of turning away their attention without the mortification of seeming abso- lutely to fly from the subject. Such is the strange constitution of our nature, that merely to have another difficulty presented to us, though it may be yet absolutely insurmountable in itself, if only it have some slight resemblance to a former difficulty, seems to us almost as if we had succeeded in explaining the first ; and each difficulty, by a very convenient transposition which our pride knows well how to make, supplies, according as we have been considering the one rather than the other, the place of explanation to that which is afterwards to explain it no less clearly in its turn. " Proceeding on the analogy of these phenomena to those of tickling, an analogy which, striking as it is in many circumstances, does not justify more than conjecture in this application, it may be conceived to be at least not absolutely impossible, since a diversity of some kind there must be, that in those who receive 58 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. no pleasure from music, as in those who are not ticklish, there is a rapid return of the nervous organ after each separate touch or pressure in the one case ; and each separate tone in tiie other case produces its particular effect, that effect which it would have produced in all if unaccompanied by any other tone in music, or slight pressure in tickling, but that a succession of these produces no effect different from that which each would have produced singly. A certain interval is necessary for distinct hearing in every case ; and before this interval has passed, the auditory nerves in this case may be imagined to be quiescent, or nearly quiescent. " In an inquiry of this sort all which is necessary is to account for the mere original defect of pleasure ; since if the relations of notes, as reciprocally high or low, never gave any delight, the ear having no object of interest in these successions, would soon habitually neglect them, and at length cease altogether to dis- tinguish them, attending only to the verbal meaning of sounds, and not to their tone ; in the same manner as we pay little attention to another relative difference of voices, as more or less loud, unless when the dif- ference is very considerable, and not in those common differences of intensity which distinguish every voice in conversation from every other voice ; or as after living long in a province, the dialect of which is distinguished by any accentual peculiarities, we at last become unconscious of these, and hear the words, as it were, stripped of their peculiarity of tone. In what is termed the cultivation of a musical ear, how- ever, we have not an analogy merely, but a direct proof of this influence of habit. " That the ear may be improved by cultivation, or, in other words, by nice attention to the differences of musical sounds, every one knows ; and if this attention can enable us, even in mature life, to dis- HEARING. 59 tinguish as different in themselves, sounds which, but for the habitual attention, we should have regarded as the same, it may well be supposed that continued inattention from earliest infancy may render us in- sensible to musical relations still more obvious and precise than those which we have thus only learned to distinguish; or, which is the same thing, that continued attention from infancy to slight musical differences of sound an attention which may be regarded as the natural effect of pleasure received may render us capable of distinguishing tones as very dissimilar, the difference of which, however ob- vious at present, we should scarcely, but for such original attentive discrimination, have been able to detect. What, in comparison, the refined ear of a performer, almost every moment of whose life has been spent amidst sounds 1 Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony,' is to a common musical ear, that common musical ear may be to those in whom this discriminating skill seems to be wholly, or nearly defective. The refined musician, who, but for the long practice of his art, would have shared that incapacity which now excites his wonder, is astonished that persons of a common ear do not distinguish the nice dif- ferences which appear to him almost as remarkable as those differences which they are capable of per- ceiving; and the person of common musical ear only does the same thing, when he is astonished that the less refined differences remarked by himself are not obviously distinguishable to all mankind, or, at least, by all who have no deafness to ' incapacitate them from hearing the separate sounds. The discrimina- tion in both has depended on previous attention, which has necessarily been greater in the one case G 60 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. than in the other ; and what attention can we sup- pose to have been originally given if, from the cause which I have ventured to state as a possible one in persons without musical ear, no pleasure had ori- ginally been felt by them in any sequence of notes as successive, and the whole value of sound been to them, the meaning of which it was symbolically re- presentative, which, accordingly, they have learned to discriminate in every other case as accurately as others*?" * Brown's Lectures, ii. 318. 61 CHAPTER III. SMELL IN BIRDS. As the sensation of smell, so far as we can judge, seems to depend upon the diffusion in the air of very subtile effluvia, or a principle called aroma, hitherto but little understood, it is obvious that objects can- not be perceived at so great a distance by smell as by hearing or vision, which do not depend on materials derived from the objects themselves. The discovery of distant water by the camel, however, seems to depend on the sense of smell * ; and, if we are to credit the authorities given by Bryant, the ass has a similar faculty of discovering distant water by the smell, whence he thinks, in conformity to his singular views of mythology, the ass came to be the object of worship in the East. He takes occasion from this circumstance to explain a passage in Genesis^, which has long puzzled the best Hebrew critics. Instead of " Anah that found the mules in the wilderness," Bryant renders it the ass " which found waters in the wilderness, when Anah fed the mules of his father, Zibeon." The term (O 1 ^, Imini), which Bryant renders " waters," occurs in no other part of the Bible, and while some have rendered it " mules," others, " giants J," the Vulgate gives in "hot springs" (ciquas calidas). Bochart, Aquila, and Symmachus retain the original word, and, proceeding upon this * See Menageries, vol. i. p. 295, &c. ; and Edin. Phil. Journ. 1820. f Ch, xxxvi, v. 24. | Targum in Genes. 62 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. view, Houbigant reads "Aiiah who attacked the Emims in the wilderness." We pretend not to decide which is the most correct, though Bryant's rendering seems the most rational. These two instances of the camel and the ass, however, seem to be solitary, for we have no good evidence to prove that other animals can discover very distant objects by the smell, though the fact has been commonly asserted of vultures, and also, as we have already remarked, of the goose. In a case of this sort observation is always better than the most ingenious and plausible theoretical reasoning ; and fortunately we possess, with respect to the vulture and some other birds, the remarks of Dr. James Johnson, which we have already partially referred to, but shall now give entire. " It has always," says the Doctor, " appeared to us most extraordinary, indeed unac- countable, that birds of prey could scent carcasses at such a distance as they are said to do. We were led to scepticism on this subject some twenty years ago, while observing the concourse of birds of prey from every point of the horizon to a corpse floating down the river Ganges, and that during the north -east monsoon when the wind blew steadily from one point of the compass for months in succession. It was extremely difficult to imagine that the effluvia from a putrifyirig body in the water could emanate in direct opposition to the current of air and impinge on the olfactories of birds many miles distant. Such, how- ever, were the dicta of natural history, and we could only submit to the general opinion. We have no doubt, now that we know the general opinion to be something wrong, that it was by means of the optic rather than the olfactory nerve, that these birds found out their quarry. " The toucan ranks next to the vulture in discern- ing, whether by smell or by sight, the carrion on SMELL. 63 which it feeds. The immense size of its bill, which is many times larger than its head, was supposed to present, in its honey-comb texture, an extensive pro- longation of the olfactory nerve, and thus to account for its power of smelling at great distances ; but, on accurate observation, the texture above-mentioned in the bill is found to be mere diploe to give strength to the bill. Now the eye of this bird is somewhat larger than the whole brain ; and it has been ascer- tained by direct experiments, that where any putrid carrion was enclosed in a basket, from which effluvia could freely emanate, but which concealed the offal from sight, it attracted no attention from vultures and other birds of prey till it was exposed to their view, when they immediately recognized their object, and others came rapidly from different quarters of the horizon, where they were invisible a few minutes before. This sudden appearance of birds of prey, from immense distances, and in every direction, how- ever the wind may blow, can only be accounted for by their soaring to an altitude. In this situation their prey on the ground is seen by them, however minute it may be, and their appearance is merely their descent from high regions of the atmosphere to within the scope of our optics. II ow far these remarks apply to the raven, the only bird of the vulture genus that comes within our review, we leave for more experienced naturalists*." Dr. Johnson here represents the toucan as preying on carrion, a statement different from what is given in books of natural history, and his remarks on the nerves of smell are equally opposed to the recent observations of Dr. Stewart Traill, of Liverpool f . " All systematic authors," says Dr. Traill, " have described the bill of the genus Ramphastos as hol- low. The Linnaean character even begins 4 Rostrum * Medico-Chir, Review. f Linn. Trans, xi. 288. 64 FACtJLTIES^OF BIRDS. maximum inane/ &c.; and Buffon has eloquently enlarged on the supposed error, or oversight of nature, in furnishing so small a bird with a bill so monstrous and useless, My friend Charles Waterton, Esq., who has lately returned from the interior of Guyana, had observed, that when a portion of the bill of a toucan is shot away, the remainder bleeds profusely; and on immersing the bill of a recently-killed bird in hot water, he was enabled to detach from the exterior covering of the bill a horny substance, which filled its whole cavity, consisting of a delicate net-work of bony matter in the interior, surrounded by thin plates of the same material. On these bony partitions a great number of blood-vessels are distinctly ramified in the living animal. This gentleman favoured me with a specimen thus prepared ; in carefully examining which, I found that the nostrils conducted to the internal cells of the substance within the upper mandible. " From this observation, and the great vascularity of the part, I concluded that the bill is not a useless incumbrance, as Buffon rashly conjectured ; but that it is an admirable contrivance of nature to increase the delicacy of the organ of smell in a species whose residence and habits require great nicety in that sense. As the animal is incapable of either tearing or bruising its food, it necessarily must feed on small substances. Its aliment is said chiefly to consist of small fruits or seeds ; and for readily attaining these in the wilds of almost impenetrable forests, an acute organ of smell is no doubt requisite. Instead, then, of regard- ing the bill of the toucan as a useless load, I am disposed to consider it as an instance of that wisdom and contrivance which attentive observation every where discovers in the works of nature." According to Azara, toucans destroy a great num- ber of living birds, attacking them, chasing them from their nests, and devouring the eggs or young, SMELL. 65 which they can with their long bill draw from the recess of a hole, and even from the deep basket woven by the orioles, or from the solid masonry of the baker-bird (Merops rufus). This account is corroborated by the interesting observations made by Mr. Broderip upon a toucan (Ramphastos erythro- rhynchus), which was kept alive in London. The predacious habits of this bird were first observed by the proprietor on the occasion of a young canary-bird having escaped arid gone near to the toucan's cage. The toucan appeared more than usually excited, and when the door was opened it instantly seized and devoured the canary-bird. Mr. Broderip being desirous of witnessing a similar circumstance, the proprietor selected a goldfinch for the experiment. " The instant he introduced his hand with the goldfinch into the cage of the toucan, the latter, which was on a perch, snatched it with his bill. The poor little bird had only time to utter a short weak cry ; for, within a second it was dead, killed by compression on the sternum and abdomen, and that so powerful, that the bowels were protruded after a very few squeezes of the toucan's bill. As soon as the goldfinch was dead, the toucan hopped with it still in his bill to another perch, and, placing it between his right foot and the perch, began to strip off the feathers with his bill. When he had plucked away most of them, he broke the bones of the wings and legs (still holding the little bird in the same position) with his bill, taking the limbs therein, and giving at the same time a strong lateral wrench. He continued this work with great dexterity, till he had almost reduced the bird to a shapeless mass ; and ever and arion, he would take his prey from the perch in his bill, and hop from perch to perch, making at the same time a peculiar hollow clattering noise, at which times I observed that his bill and GG FACULTIES OF BIRDS. wings were affected with a vibratory or shivering motion, though the latter were not expanded. He would then return the bird to the perch with his bill and set his foot on it. He first ate the viscera, and continued pulling off and swallowing piece after piece, till the head, neck, and part of the back and sternum with their soft parts were alone left : these, after a little more wrenching while they were held on the perch, and mastication, as it were, while they were held in the bill, he at last swallowed, not even leaving the beak or legs of his prey. The last part gave him the most trouble ; but it was clear to me, that he felt great enjoyment; for, whenever he raised his prey from the perch, he appeared to exult, now masticating the morsel with his toothed bill, and ap- plying his tongue to it, now attempting to gorge it, and now making the peculiar clattering noise, accom- panied by the shivering motion above-mentioned. The whole operation, from the time of seizing his prey to that of devouring the last morsel, lasted about a quarter of an hour. He then cleaned his bill from the feathers, by rubbing it against the perches and bars of his cage. While on this part of the subject, it may be as well to mention another fact, which appears to me not unworthy of notice. I have more than once seen him return his food after he had taken it from his crop, and, after masti- cating the morsel a while in his bill, again swallow it: the whole operation, particularly the return of the food to the bill, bearing a strong resemblance to the analogous action in the ruminating animals. The food on which I saw him so employed was a piece of beef, which had evidently been macerated some time in the crop. While masticating it, he made the same hollow clattering noise as he made over the remains of the goldfinch. Previous to this operation, he had examined his feeding-trough, in SMELL. 67 which there was nothing but bread, which I saw him take up and reject ; and it appeared to me that he was thus reduced from necessity to the above mode of solacing his palate with animal food. His food consists of bread, boiled vegetables, eggs, and flesh ; to which a little bird is now added, about every second or third day. He shows a decided pre- ference for animal food, picking out all morsels of that description, and not resorting to the vegetable diet till all of the former is exhausted*." It will appear from these observations, that Baron Cuvier is in error, when he says of the toucans, " the structure of their bill obliges them to swallow their food without mastication ; when they have seized it, they throw it in the air, the more easily to swallow itf.'' It is always hazardous to venture upon general observations of this kind without personal observa- tion to support them, for, how plausible soever they may appear on paper, they seldom accord with facts. With respect to the smell of vultures, Willughby says, " they have an excellent sagacity of smelling above all other birds, so that they can perceive the savour of dead carcasses from far," to which Ray adds, " many miles off they sayj." Some of the old authors indeed, such as Thomas Aquinas, specify the distance at which a vulture can scent out a dead body to be five hundred miles , and Isidore alleges it is no matter even if the sea itself intervene || ; both of which statements are intended, we presume, as a comment on the passage in Pliny, where it is affirmed that the vulture has a more sagacious scent, as the eagle has a clearer sight, than man ; or on that of Lucretius, in which he compares the scent of the vulture for carrion to the scent of bees for honey. * Zool. Journ. i. 487. f Regne Animal, i. 460, edit. 1829. I Ornith. by Ray, p. 66. De Anim. Comment, ii. 97. || Origin, xii. 7. 68 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. Apuleius compares a glutton smelling out a good dinner as superior in such sagacity to the dog or the vulture. It may well be disputed, however, that the smell of the vulture or any other bird extends to the dis- tances alleged by these writers, for, as was long ago remarked by Caelius Rhodiginus, odorous effluvia cannot be distinguished at any considerable distance, as they are not only diluted by being diffused in the air, but may even be thereby wholly changed in their qualities*. The observations of Avicenna are still more to the point. " Odours," he says, " arise from most animals as well as from man ; and in a similar way things are rendered visible at a considerable distance, even beyond high mountains. I have myself indeed observed vultures wheeling about in the air, and of course their vision must be extensive, to enable them to see from a higher elevation than the highest mountains, since they can in such circum- stances discern a piece of carrion in the plains below them. But if it is denied, that colours can be per- ceived at such distances, much more ought the same to be affirmed of odours, whose power is weaker than that of colours ; and since it is not indispensable for every animal to move the eyelids or the eyes in order to see, neither is it indispensable for every animal to smell to a thing in order to perceive the scent thereof f. From all these various facts we think Dr. John- son's remarks are decidedly the most plausible ; and even those authors who speak in the most unhesi- tating manner of the powers of smell, furnish from their own accounts circumstances to prove their opi- nions doubtful. Wilson, for example, speaking of the turkey -vulture (Caihartes aura, ILLTGER), says, * Lect. Antiq. viii. 18. f Apud Aldrovandi Ornithol. i. 12G. SMELL. 69 44 These birds, unless when rising- from the earth, sel- dom flap their wings, but sweep along in ogees, and dipping and rising lines, and move with great rapidity. They are often seen in companies, soaring at an immense height, particularly previous to a thunder storm. Their wings are not spread horizontally, but form a slight angle with the body upwards, the tips having an upward curve. Their sense of smelling is astonishingly exquisite, and they never fail to discover carrion, even when at the distance from it of several miles *." Their soaring in the air, whether during a thunderstorm or at any other time, must evidently be not for the purpose of smelling out, but for discovering by the eye some piece of carrion. The Abbe Clavi- gero's account of the black vulture (Catharte urubu, VIEILLOT) is precisely similar. " They fly so high," he says, " that although they are pretty large, they are lost to the sight ; and, especially before a hail- storm, they will be seen wheeling in vast numbers under the loftiest clouds, till they entirely disappear. They feed upon carrion, which they discover by the acuteness of their sight and smell, from the greatest height, and descend upon it with a majestic flight in a great spiral course t." When the turkey-vultures roost, they usually sit in companies on the branches of a large tree, and *' they may be seen," says Wilson, " on a summer's morning, spreading out their wings to the rising sun and remaining in that posture for a considerable time. Pennant conjectures that this is to purify their bodies, which are most offensively fetid. But is it reasonable to suppose that that effluvia can be offensive to them, which arises from food perfectly adapted to their nature and which is constantly the object of their desires f?" This is corroborated by the remark of * Amer. Orinth. ix. 98, 1st edit. t Hist. Mexico, I Amer. Ornith. ix. 97. H 70 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. Dr. Latham that vultures, " when left to themselves, rather prefer flesh already tainted than fresh meat. In this circumstance of their disposition," he adds, " I am clear, in respect of the carrion vulture of Jamaica, two of which I kept alive for some time in my garden. They would indeed eat raw flesh, but expressed particular pleasure when any tainted food was offered them, fluttering with expanded wings and falling on with double appearance of appetite, as well as devouring twice the quantity as at other times*." The raven is another of those birds which have been celebrated for discovering distant objects by the smell, which Bingley thinks " must be very acute ; for in the coldest winter days, at Hudson's Bay, when every kind of effluvia is almost instantaneously de- stroyed by the frost, buffaloes and other beasts have been killed where not one of these birds was to be seen, but in a few hours scores of them have been found collected about the spot to pick up the blood and offal f.'' Mr. Knapp is also disposed either to refer this circumstance to smell, or to some mysterious sense inscrutable to human penetration. " Should an animal die," he says, " or a limb of fresh carrion be on the hooks in the tree, the hoarse croak of the raven is sure immediately to be heard calling his congeners to the banquet. We see it daily in its progress of inspection, or high in the air on a tran- sit to other regions, hastening, we conjecture, to some distant prey. With the exception of the snipe, no bird seems more universally spread over the surface of our globe than the raven, inhabiting every zone, the hot, the temperate, the severe ; feeding upon and removing noxious substances from the earth, of which it obtains intimation by means of a faculty we have little conception of. Sight it cannot be ; and we know not of any fetor escaping from an animal pre- * Gen, Hist, of Birds, i. 2. f Animal Biog. ii. 242. SMELL. ?! vious to putrescence so subtile as to call these sca- vengers of nature from the extremity of one county to that of another : for it is manifest from the height which they preserve in their flight, and the haste they are making, that their departure has been from some far distant station, having a remote and urgent object in contemplation*." The following anecdote told by M. Antoine, if it may be credited, illustrates this view of the case in a striking manner. A gentleman who had been rob- bed by his servant, forgave him on condition that he would promise to abandon his bad habits : this promise he so far kept, and conducted himself so steadily, as to accumulate enough of money to enable him to marry and to keep an inn on a much frequented road. About twenty years after, the gentleman travelling that way came to lodge with his old servant, whom he did not recollect till the man came forward, made himself known, and expressed how gratified and happy he was in again waiting upon him. He gave him the handsomest room, and the best fare ; but the night had no sooner set in, than this perfidious wretch, after so much show of attachment, stabbed his old master with a dagger, threw his body into a cart, and carried it to a river at the back of his house. In order to avoid discovery, and to prevent the corpse from rising to the surface of the water, he pierced the body through with a long stake sharpened at the end, which he pushed so far into the mud, that only a very small portion of the end of the stake was visible. A few days afterwards some ravens arrived from all directions, and crowded to the spot. Their increasing croaking, altogether unusual at the place, led the inhabitants to fancy a thousand foolish stories. The pertinacity of the birds was such, also, that it was useless to attempt driving * Journ. of a Naturalist, p. 172, 3d edit. ^2 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. them away. This increased the excited curiosity so much, that the stake was at length, with difficulty, drawn out, which was no sooner done than the body rose to the surface of the water. Inquiries were accordingly made to discover the murderer ; and the wheel-marks of the cart having* been traced to the back of the inn, the master was taken up upon suspicion and confessed his crime*. A similar faculty of acute smelling is popularly ascribed to the rook (Corvus prcedatorius) , not for the purpose of procuring food, but for descrying danger. Dr. Darwin has remarked, that a conscious- ness of danger from mankind is much more appa- rent in rooks than in most other birds. " Any one," adds Bingley, " who has in the least attended to them, will see that they evidently distinguish that the danger is greater when a man is armed with a gun than when he has no weapon with him. In the spring of the year, if a person happen to walk under a rookery, with a gun in his hand, the inhabitants of the trees rise on their wings, and scream to the unfledged young to shrink into their nests from the sight of the enemy. The country people, observing this circumstance so uniformly to occur, assert that rooks can smell gun- powder f." We have no doubt, however, that had the writer tried the experiment, as we have done, of presenting his umbrella or his walking-stick at the rooks, they would have been equally alarmed as at the levelling of a double-barrelled fowling-piece. J Their ability to smell gunpowder is evidently a fancy. That rooks, however, have some acute faculty of this kind appears from their remarkable dexterity in discovering their food. " I have often," says Mr. Knapp, " ob- served them alight on a pasture of uniform verdure, and exhibiting no sensible appearance of withering * Animaux Celebres, i. 192. f Anim, Biogr.ii.250. J J. R, SMELL. 73 or decay, and immediately commence stocking up the ground. Upon investigating the object of their operations, I have found many heads of plantains, the little autumnal dandelions, arid other plants, drawn out of the ground and scattered about, their roots having been eaten off by a grub, leaving only a crown of leaves upon the surface. This grub, beneath, in the earth, the rooks had detected in their flight, and descended to feed on it, first pulling up the plant which concealed it, and then drawing the larvae from their holes. By what intimation this bird had discovered its hidden food, we are at a loss to con- jecture ; but the rook has always been supposed to scent matters with great discrimination*." Water-birds (Natatores, ILLIGER) might be sup- posed, from the considerable development of their nerves of smell, to have this sense very acute ; and accord- ingly we have already seen that Lucretius attributes to the quick smelling of the geese, their discovery of the Gauls when they attempted to take the capitol by sur- prise. The organs of smell in the goose, however, are considerably less developed than those of the duck *f\ The petrels, we might infer, ought to possess an acute smell, as their nostrils are not only large, but diffe- rent from other birds; they project distinctly from the beak, forming a singular-looking sort of nose, in some species, such as the pintado petrel (Procellaria capensis), nearly an inch longj; in the giant petrel (P. giganlea, GMELIN) it is much more. As these birds do not fly so high in the air as vultures and ravens, arid live upon dead fish and similar garbage, these prominent nostrils are probably intended to render them tf Sagacious of their quarry from afar." * Journ. of a Naturalist, p. 179, 3d edit. f De Blainville, Principes, p. 322. J Lesson, Man. d'Ornith. ii. 397. 74 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. This opinion is rendered more probable from the very different structure of the nostrils in birds which feed on live fish. The pelicans, for example, have the cavity of the nostrils in general very small, and the marginal cartilage, as well as the opening in the bone, scarcely perceptible, even in the skeleton. The cormorant (Carbo cormoranus, MEYER), again, which is ranked in the same group (PehcanidcF^ LEACH), has the nostrils so small that De Blainville says it is with difficulty a very small slit can be dis- tinguished at the base of the bill in the living birds, hence he designates them by the term Crypt or hi?iia. The same author describes in several species a sort of scale covering the nostrils like a lid*, which must, we should imagine, diminish their power of smell by admitting only a minute portion of the air containing odoriferous particles. It is worthy of remark, that the kingfisher (Alcedo), though not a swimming bird like the pelicans and cormorants, has very small nostrils, with a cartilaginous lidf; smell being, so far as we can judge, of inferior moment to them, inasmuch as they feed almost exclusively on live fish J, which they must discover and pursue by the eye. In ducks (AnatidcB^ LEACH), many of whom seek their food amongst the mud at the bottom of standing water, the nerves of smell are greatly expanded, a fact which has been long known. " Flat-billed birds/' says Mr. Clayton, " that grope for their meat, have three pair of nerves that come into their bills, whereby they have that accuracy to distinguish what is proper for food and what to be rejected, by their taste, when they do not see it. This was most evident in a duck's bill and head ; ducks having larger nerves that come into their bills than geese or any other bird that I have seen ; and therefore quaffer arid grope * Principes d'Anat. Comp. 323-4. f Ibid. 319, \ See Paxton in Ho'rt. Regist. Jan. 1832. SMELL. 75 out their meat the most. But then I discovered none of these nerves in round-billed birds. But since, in my anatomies in the country, in a rook, I first observed two nerves that came down betwixt the eyes into the upper bill, but considerably smaller than any of the three pair of nerves in the bills of ducks, but larger than the nerves of any other round-billed birds. And it is remarkable that those birds, more than any other round-billed birds, seem to grope for their meat in cow-dung*." " I observed," says Dr. Mou- lin, " three pair of nerves in all the broad-billed birds that I could meet with, and in all such as feel for their food out of sight, as snipes, woodcocks, curlews, geese, ducks, teals, widgeons, &c. These nerves are very large, equalling almost the optic nerve in thickness. Two are distributed nigh the end of the upper bill, and are there very much ex- panded, passing through the bone into the membrane, lining the roof of the mouth f.'' The facts thus proved by the structure of the organ are corroborated by the actions of the birds themselves. There can be little doubt indeed that animals may sometimes be deceived into eating what is unwhole- some, or even poisonous J. But this, it is probable, happens much more rarely in those endowed with acute smell than in others ; for according to the beautiful remark of Cicero, borrowed, it is highly probable, from the Greek philosophers, " the nostrils are providentially placed high because odours have a tendency to rise, and are also near the mouth for the purpose of discriminating food and drink ." Even very young ducks, accordingly, as we have more than once observed, will reject from the mud in which * Phil. Trans. No. 206. f Ibid. No. 199, or Lowthorp'? Abridg.ii. 861-2. I See Insect Trans, p. 76-8 ; Ins. Miscell. p. 30. De Natura Deorum, ii. 56, 76 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. they may be fishing such substances as they judge by smell to be unfit for food, while they will eagerly swallow a bit of biscuit which for the sake of experi- ment may be concealed amongst the mud ; and they will as eagerly seize and swallow any animal garbage which they find in the same place, and which has just been rejected by their fellow-swimmers the swans, whose food is wholly vegetable*. Dr. Darwin was therefore in some degree right in the following remarks, though he evidently carries his principle to extremes which facts will not altogether justify. " The senses of smell and taste," says the Doctor, " in many other animals greatly excel those of mankind ; for in civi- lized society, as our victuals are generally prepared by others, and are adulterated with salt, spice, oil, and empyreuma, we do not hesitate about eating whatever is set before us, and neglect to cultivate these senses ; whereas other animals try every morsel by the smell before they take it into their mouths, and by the taste before they swallow it; and are led each to his proper nourishment by this organ of sense t." We have already mentioned the instance of a chicken, which, the instant it was excluded from the shell, picked up a spider, evidently guided thereto by the eye. The celebrated Greek physician, Galen, made an experiment which proves a similar early development of smell, and will furnish an interesting illustration of our subject. " On dissecting," he says, " a goat great with young, I found a brisk embryon, and having detached it from the matrix, and snatching it away before it saw its dam, I brought it into a certain room, where there were many vessels, some filled with wine, others with oil, some with honey, others with milk or some other liquor, and in others were grains and fruits : we first observed the young animal get upon its * J. R. t Zoonomia, i. 195. SMELL. 77 feet and walk ; then it shook itself, and afterwards scratched its side with one of its feet ; then we saw it smelling to every one of these thing's that were set in the room ; and when it had smelt to them all, it drank up the milk*." In the instance of Galen's kid, as well as of the young- ducks, the nose was brought near to the object whose smell was to be ascertained ; but, in some very singular instances, this appears to be perceived in a manner not a little puzzling. We can easily under- stand indeed that swine, when ploughing up the ground in search of roots, may distinguish, by smell- ing such as they chance to turn up, what is suited to them for food, for this is nothing more than was done by Galen's kid ; but when we are told they are employed on the Continent to hunt for truffles (Tuber cibarium, SIBTHORP), we must infer that their sense of smell is rather beyond what we can well conceive by comparison with our own perceptions. The truffle-gatherer, we are told, ties a cord round the animal's leg, drives him into the pastures, and wherever he begins to root with his nose, truffles are found at the depth of several inches, though the truffle before it is cooked has by no means a strong or remarkable smell. Dogs, however, are employed in a similar manner for the discovery of truffles, and with a success which is astonishing to those who witness this exercise of instinct for the first timet. We have observed a still more remarkable instance of the same kind in the mole (Talpa cceca* SAVI.). As this singular creature feeds chiefly upon earth- worms, it is well fitted for hunting after them under ground, from being able to burrow with great ra- pidity by means of its snout and claws; but what is more worthy of notice still, is its faculty of discovering their haunts. Worms, it may be remarked, are not * De Locis, vi. 6. t London's Encycl. of Plants, p. 1024, 78 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. found indiscriminately in a field, but in such places only as afford a supply of decayed vegetable matter upon which they feed. In pastures, accordingly, they always crowd to the droppings of cattle, under which the herbage is smothered, and more or less in a state of decomposition. Now to these haunts of the earth- worms, we have observed the mole generally finds its way, not by searching for them on the surface, and then burrowing under them, a process we could easily understand, but by a direct route under ground. The droppings of cows, it is true, have a rather strong and penetrating musky odour ; but it is very ques- tionable, we think, whether it is possible for this to become diffused under ground at the depth of several inches, and to the extent of several yards. Yet we have seen as many as three mole-tracks, each from an opposite direction, terminating in the same cow's dropping, like radii to a centre. But even if the odour were proved to be diffused under ground, that would not serve to account for the moles directing their courses in the same way to the under surface of stones, another favourite resort of the worms*. The woodcock (Scolopax rusticola, CHARLET), which feeds upon earth-worms, exhibits equal dexterity with the mole in discovering them. " These birds," as Colonel Montagu says, " rambling through the dark, are directed by an exquisite sense of smelling to those places most likely to produce their natural sustenance, and by a still more exquisite sense of feeling in their long bill collecting their food. The eye is not called into use, for, like the mole, they actually feed below the surface ; and, by the sensibility of the instrument which is thrust into the soft earth, not a worm can escape that is within reach. A wood- cock in our menagerie/' he adds, " very soon dis- covered and drew forth every worm in the ground, * J. R. SMELL. 79 which was dug up to enable it to bore ; and worms put into a large garden-pot, covered with earth five or six inches deep, are always cleared by the next morn- ing, without one being left. The enormous quantity of worms that these birds eat is scarcely credible ; indeed it would be the constant labour of one person to procure such food for two or three woodcocks *." The same opinion respecting the acute smell of the woodcock was held by the older authors, among whom we may name Nemesian, Gesner, and Aldro- vand'f. M. Montbeillard also says it seems to dis- cover its food by smell rather than by sight J, which is supposed to be corroborated by what is related by Bowles of certain tame woodcocks at San Ildefonso in Spain, belonging to the Infant, Don Louis. " Here," says Bowles, " there was a fountain which flowed perpetually to keep the ground moist, and in the middle a pine-tree and shrubs for the same pur- pose. Fresh sod was brought to them, the richest in worms that could be found ; in vain did the worms seek concealment when the woodcock was hungry ; it discovered them by the smell, stuck its bill into the ground, but never higher than the nostrils; drew them out singly, and raising its bill into the air, it extended upon it the entire length of the worm, and in this way swallowed it smoothly, without any action of the jaws. This whole operation was performed in an instant, and the motion of the woodcock was so equal and imperceptible that it seemed doing nothing. I did not once see it miss its aim : for this reason, and because it never plunged its bill up to the orifice of the nostrils, I concluded that smell is what directs it in search of its food." * Ornith. Diet. p. 562, 2d edit, f Aldrovandi Ornithologia, iii. 126. J Oiseaux, Art. La Becasse. Bowles's Nat, Hist, of Spain, p. 484. 80 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. In some instances it may be that the worm-casts point out to the woodcock where to dig for the worms, but such an explanation will not apply to all the facts just quoted from Montagu and Bowles. A recent author seems inclined, however, to doubt that the woodcock is guided by smell, and remarks that " the bill being inserted only as far as the nostrils proves nothing but the necessity of preserving respira- tion ; and the bill once fixed in the earth the position of the nostrils must be a matter of total indifference. We cannot conclude that, anteriorly to the insertion of the bill, smell had any thing more to do with the precision of the action than sight. The organ of this sense is in general so obtuse among birds, that it is contrary to analogy to suppose the woodcock pecu- liarly privileged in its enjoyment, more especially as, in consequence of the fleshy substance which ter- minates its upper mandible, it is already endued with a species of tact calculated to enable it to discover suitable aliment in wet and muddy ground*." We may remark, however, that if touch or taste be meant by tact, neither of these would enable the bird to discover worms deep in the earth, any more than it would enable swine or dogs to find truffles, or the mole to drive a burrow in a straight line from its nest to a stone at several yards distance. * Cuvier's Anim. Kingdom, by Griffith, viii. 524. 81 CHAPTER IV. TASTE IN BIRDS. WE have tried numerous experiments upon soft- billed song-birds (Sylvicolce, VIEILLOT), which are in some measure omnivorous, in order to discover whether or not they were guided by taste in their preference or rejection of certain articles. The black- cap (Philomela atricapilla), for instance, which is very fond of berries, will greedily devour those of the elder, the privet, the honeysuckle, and the ivy, as well as currants and grapes ; but it will not touch the berries of the bitter-sweet (Solanum dulcamara) which a red-breast in the adjacent cage seemed to relish, while he rejected the privet berries. What appeared to be the most remarkable circumstance in these experiments was, that the berries are for the most part swallowed entire without the bird breaking or bruising them with its bill. Now it is difficult for us to conceive that the berry could be tasted while it remains unbroken ; at least our organs are too obtuse to distinguish tastes under such circum- stances *. The observations of Mr. Knapp upon these birds agree exactly with our own. " Our gardens/' he says, " shrubberies, and orchards become their resort, seeking for the fruits usually produced in those places. And, first, the fauvette (Philomela hor- tensis), with all her matured brood, is certain to be found feeding voraciously upon our cultivated berries, * J, R. 82 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. or mining a hole in the fig or jargonel pear ; and so intent are they upon this occupation, that they will permit a reasonable examination of their form and actions, but at other periods it is difficult to approach them. The black-cap discontentedly flits about our inclosures and thickets all the summer through, building her nest or tending her young ; the fine clear harmony of the male bird resounding in the morning from the brake, yet, timid and alarmed, he ceases and hides himself if we approach ; but now he introduces all his progeny to our banquet; cautious still, we can yet observe his actions, and easily dis- tinguish the black or brown heads of the sexes, as they are occupied beneath the foliage of an Antwerp raspberry. The white-throats now, too, leave their hedges, and all their insect food, which for months had been their only supply, and in the thick covert of the gooseberry extract with great dexterity the pulp of the fruit, or strip the currant of its berry. The elegant, slender form of the female, her snowy throat and silvery stomach *, render her very conspicuous, as she scuttles away to hide herself in the bush ; her plain brown-backed mate seems rather less timid, but yet carefully avoids all symptoms of familiarity. Other doubtful little birds likewise appear, and are gone ; several of which, however, are probably the young of ascertained species. " All these fruit-eating birds seem to have a very discriminating taste and a decided preference for the richest sorts ; the sweetest variety of the gooseberry or the currant always being selected ; and when they are consumed, less saccharine dainties are submitted to : but the hedge-berry of the season our little foreign connoisseurs disdain to feed on, leaving it for the * We think our author has in this instance described the male babillard (Curruca garrula, BRISSON) for the female white-throat, J.R. TASTE. 83 humbler-appetited natives ; they are away to sunnier regions and more grateful food *.'* With respect to insects and other small animals upon which the same birds also feed, they are equally nice in their preferences and rejections. We had a fau- vette (Philomela hortensis), for example, which was exceedingly fond of spiders (P/ialangium opilio, Epeira diadema, 4*c.) 5 the largest of which it would contrive to swallow ; but the black-cap, though it will devour flies of every sort, will not touch a spider, and while it will eat almost any smooth caterpillar (Phlogophora meticulosa, Mamestra brassier, 4'c.), it will not touch those of the cabbage butterfly (Pontia brassica), which the fauvette devoured with avidity. Neither of these birds again, nor the nightingale, will touch an earth-worm, of which the red- breast is very fondf. No bird will touch the caterpillar of the magpie moth. These facts and many more of a similar kind, which we could easily enumerate, fully authorize us, we think, to conclude, that some birds at least are endowed with the faculty of taste ; though this is expressly or partially denied by certain authors distinguished for accuracy of observation, such as Colonel Montagu and M. Blumenbach, because in several species ''the tongue is horny, stiff, not supplied with nerves, and consequently unfit for an organ of taste 4'* But it does not follow, because the tongue in most other animals is the chief organ of taste, that birds with a horny tongue destitute of nerves cannot discriminate their food by taste, since other parts of the mouth may perform this office ; an inference rendered more pro- bable, from the structure and texture of the mouth, and from what takes place in man and quadrupeds. It is obvious to the most casual observer, that the upper surface of the tongue in man does not appear * Journ. of a Naturalist, p. 232, 3d edit. t J. R. J Blumeubach, Comp. Anat. 233. 84 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. so smooth as the lips, at least to the eye ; the rough- like appearance being occasioned by what we may not inappropriately call the tasters (papillfe), which are of different sorts according to the purpose they are intended to serve. One sort, situated on the a, Portion of the upper surface of the Human Tongue, showing the ner- vous Papillae; magnified ll'O times. b, The same in transverse section, showing that each papilla is composed of nerves (white) and arteries (black) ; magnified 100 times. upper surface of the tongue, are formed like a cone or sugar-loaf, and very close set like the bristles of a brush. Towards the tip they are more elevated and sharp, and many of them are divided at the summit into bristle-like points ; while towards the sides they become gradually less elevated, till they are reduced to little blunt buttons. The latter are not perhaps so much designed for the purpose of tasting as of farcing the juices out of the substance which is tasted, arid of breaking it down against the roof of the mouth to fit it the better for solution. Among those of this class are distributed others of a larger size, but much less numerous, somewhat in form of a small mushroom placed on a very short footstalk, and easily distin- guishable to the eye by their redness and brilliancy. TASTE. 85 The greatest number of this sort are towards the tip and edges of the tongue, where the taste is most acute, and where they are less exposed to injury than they would have been on the surface or middle of the tongue. All of these are covered with a very thin scarf-skin a light, delicate, gauzy membrane, red with blood-vessels. An upright section of the nervous Papillae; magnified 400 times. These tasters are not, however, confined to the tongue, but may be seen in the inner skin of the lips and cheeks, as well as on the palate or roof of the mouth. It has farther been proved that these are useful in tasting, by the case of a boy whose tongue sloughed off in confluent small pox, and who retained the sense of taste, though not so vividly as before his calamity. Now all birds possess a tongue, though in some species, such as the pelican (Onocrotalus pelecanus, 1 3 86 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. ALDROVAND), it is so very small *, that its very exis- tence has been denied by several good observers; among whom Willughby says, "I could not see any tongue ; but where the root of the tongue was fixed, I observed certain perforate bodies:" and Ray adds, " neither could Faber, who saw this same bird after- wards at Rome, find the tongue, though he searched diligently for itf." The gulls (Larida, LEACH), and the cormorant (Carbo cormoranus, MEYER), have, according to M. De Blainville, an exceedingly small tongue, smooth, slippery (/me), without horny texture and with no trace of papillae J." These birds however feed chiefly, if not exclusively, on live fish, the species of which require little discrimination, as no species, we believe, comes amiss to them. The Tongue and Head of the Ostrich (Struthio Camelus). * Blumenbach, Comp. Anat. 233; Cuvier, Regne Animal in voce. t Ray's Willughby, Ornith, p. 327 j Anat. Comp. p. 261. TASTE. 87 tongue in the ostrich (Struthio Camelus, ARISTOTLE), however, which is an omnivorous bird, is also small. Baron Cuvier describes it as " short and rounded like a crescent*, 5 ' and Vallisnieri, the celebrated Italian naturalist, says it is "very short, similar to that of fishes, smooth, slippery (lubrica), and with- out any appearance of papilla?, which, according to Malpighi, are the chief organs of taste ; and indeed it heedlessly swallows pieces of wood, stones, ropes, bits of cloth, iron, glass, and the like, not seeming to feel any taste, but foolishly gulping them down }." We think, on the contrary, the lubrica of his own description would lead to the conclusion that the ostrich did possess taste, and that the shortness of the tongue corresponds with the short bill. The toucan {Ramphastos) possesses the most singular tongue of any other bird, being sometimes, according to Blurnenbach, " several inches in length, yet scarcely two lines broad at its root, having the appearance throughout of a piece of whalebone, with its margins fibrous J." " These," says BufFon, " are the only birds which may be said to have a feather instead of a tongue ; and a feather it cer- tainly is, though the shaft is a cartilaginous substance two lines broad ; for on both sides there are very close barbs, entirely like those of ordinary feathers, and which are longer the nearer they are inserted to the extremity ." This not being supplied with nerves, and, being withal horny and stiff, quite unfits it, as Blumenbach thinks, from being an organ of taste ; but if the tongue possess not this faculty, it is evi- dently a very useful organ, as appears from the account given by M. Pozzo of one of the red-bellied species (Ramphastos picatus), bred up by him, and * Regne Animal, i. 495, ed. 1829. f Notomia dello Struzzo, Esperienze, p. 180, 4to. Padova, 1726. J Comp. Anat. . 234. Oiseaux, Art. Le Toucan. 88 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. perfectly domesticated. " It fed upon the same things as parrots ; but was most greedy of grapes. These being plucked off one by one, and thrown to it, it would with great dexterity catch in the air before they fell to the ground. Its bill/' he adds, " was hollow, and on that account very light, so that the bird had but little strength in this apparently formidable weapon ; nor could it peck or strike smartly with it. But its tongue seemed to assist the efforts of this unwieldy machine: it was long, thin, and flat, not much unlike one of the feathers on the neck of a dunghill-cock ; this the bird moved up and down, and often extended five or six inches from the bill. It was of a flesh-colour, and remark- ably fringed on each side with small filaments. It Tongue and Head of the Toucan (Ramphastostoco*). TASTE. * 89 is probable, that this long 1 tongue has greater strength than the thin hollow beak that contains it ; and that the beak is only a kind of sheath for this peculiar instrument, used by the toucan in obtaining its pro- vision*. 7 ' The tongue of the woodpecker is usually said to be extremely long ; but this, according to Blumen- bach, is not quite correct, the part which corresponds to the tongue in other birds being remarkably short, and merely a sharp-pointed horny portion, with its sides barbed. " Behind this," he adds, " there is a very singular hyoid bone, of a very slender aspect, with very long pillars (cn/ra), consisting of five gristly portions composed of a single piece and two pairs. In the quiescent state of the organ, the former lies in a fleshy and very extensile sheath of the bill. The first pair of cartilages is articulated with this, and Apparatus for protruding and withdrawing the Woodpecker's tongue. a, The barbed tongue, protruded to its natural length. &, One of a pair of riband-shaped muscles, which arise together from the base of the upper mandible, and, separating on the forehead, diverge, and pass back- ward, over and round the head, and returning forwards, beneath it, are inserted into the lower mandible. c, One of a pair of stiff cartilaginous straps, which are enclosed in a sheath with the muscles, &, and accompa- nying them in their whole course, are inserted by a small bone into the root of the tongue. From this structure it is evident, that when the mascles, b, contract, the cartilaginous straps being confined with them, and not being able to shorten their length, must push the tongue forwards, and when the muscles relax, draw it back again. * Bingley, Anim. Biogr. ii. 234. 90 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. they are placed at the sides of the neck. The second pair, commencing from these, run completely over the skull, under the skin, and advancing, from be- hind, forwards, their converging extremities are placed together in a kind of groove, and commonly terminate anteriorly, by an attachment to the right side of the upper jaw. This posterior pair of carti- lages may therefore be compared to steel springs, which actuate the whole organ. This is an elegant example of the great share which mere elasticity possesses in the performance of some functions of the animal economy. When the tongue is to be darted out, the anterior pieces are drawn together, and enter the sheath of the single portion extended for their reception. The tongue is thus lengthened, and admits of being thrust out some inches*." The barbs at the tip, like the beard of an arrow, or the witter of a fish-hook, are not the least remarkable part of this curious organ, and unequivocally point out its use. " The bird,'' according to the excellent description of Paley, " having exposed the retreats of the insects by the assistance of its bill, with a motion inconceivably quick, launches out at them this long tongue ; transfixes them upon the barbed needle at the end of it ; and thus draws its prey within its mouth/' " If this be not mechanism," he adds, " what is ? Should it be said that, by continual endeavours to shoot out the tongue to the stretch, the woodpecker species may by degrees have length- ened the organ itself beyond that of other birds, what account can be given of its form, of its tip ? How, in particular, did it get its barb, its dentation ? These barbs, in my opinion, wherever they occur, are decisive proofs of mechanical contrivance f." * Comp. Anat. 237. See also Huber de Lingua Picis Stuttgard, 1821 ; Phil. Trans, xix. 509. fNat.Theol.p.251. TASTE. 91 Another ingenious contrivance connected with the woodpecker's tongue, appears to have been first described by Mr. Bowman, ofWrexham. " In the back part of the palate," he says, " is inserted a longi- tudinal groove, which tapers to a point outwards, and is fringed with stiff hairs pointing towards the throat. Without this provision it would be difficult to conceive how the bird could so easily and speedily detach its food from the barbs of the tongue, as it is known to do, particularly as the groove in the palate is placed much too backward for the tip of the former, in the natural position, ever to reach it ; and even if it could draw it in so far, the peculiar direction of the hairs would prevent their action. We must therefore infer (though the motion is performed with such celerity that we can never expect to observe it), that the tongue is taken into the mouth in a reflected position, like that of the frog, and that the tip of it is drawn through the groove, the sharp hairs of which scrape off the insects from the barbs, while the deglutition is assisted by the tubercles on the surface of the tongue during the first part of the operation of drawing it into the mouth*." During the summer of 1831 we had brought to us a young wryneck (Yunx torquilla), whose singular manner of feeding attracted our notice. Though it was so old as to be able to fly, it made no attempt to escape, and manifested no fear. We placed it in a cage in which was the empty nest of a white-throat (Curruca cinerea, BRISSON), and threw in a quantity of ants with their pupae that it might fare abundantly. Those who are not acquainted with this bird may be told that it has a very long tongue, which it has the power of pushing out far beyond the point of its bill, an organ similar to that of woodpeckers and * Bewick's Birds, i. Intr. xxiv, note, ed, 1826. 92 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. the quadrupeds called ant-eaters (Myrmtcophagrt, LINN.). It is said of the latter that they station themselves near an ant-hill, extend their long tongue across a frequented track of the insects, who, crowding upon the tongue to examine what it may be, are suddenly drawn along with it into the animal's mouth, and devoured. At other times it is said to plunge its tongue into an ant-hill, and drag up with it in- credible numbers of the inhabitants. The accuracy of these accounts we have no right to question : but it does not appear that the wryneck uses its extensile tongue in this way ; at least, our young bird uni- formly thrust its tongue, between the grass stems of the white-throat's nest, to rout out the ants which had taken shelter there, and as soon as they were thus forced within its reach it pecked them up in the usual way with its beak. It is probable, therefore, that actual observation may discover all the ant- eaters to proceed in the same manner ; and that woodpeckers which prey on insects feeding under the bark of trees, may only use their tongues to drive their prey within reach of their beaks, and not, as is usually believed, for catching it, by means of its glutinous covering*. As these observations, however, differ widely from the views of other naturalists, we shall not presume to affirm that we are right and they wrong, but shall quote one or two facts on the other side, and leave our readers to verify or disprove them, as they may find most accordant with truth. White, of Selborne, says, <{ The wrynecks thrust their bills into the turf, in quest, I conclude, of ants, which are their food. While they hold their bills in the grass, they draw out their prey with their tongues, which are so long as to be coiled round their heads f." Colonel Montagu says, " We were enabled to examine the manners * J. R.; t White's Selborne, ii. 246, ed. 1825. TASTE. 93 of this bird minutely, by taking a female from her nest, and confining her in a cage for some days. A quantity of mould, with emmets and their eggs, were given it; and it was curious to observe the tongue darted forward and retracted with such velo- city, and with such unerring aim, that it never returned without an ant or an egg adhering to it ; not trans- fixed by the horny point, as some have imagined, but retained by a peculiar tenacious moisture, by nature provided for that purpose. While it is feeding the body is motionless, the head only is turned to every side, and the motion of the tongue is so rapid that an ant's egg, which is of a light colour, and more conspicuous than the tongue, has somewhat the appearance of moving towards the mouth by attraction, as a needle flies to a magnet. The bill is rarely used except to remove the mould, in order to get more readily at these insects : where the earth is hollow, the tongue is thrust into all the cavities to rouse the ants ; for this purpose the horny appendage is ex- tremely serviceable, as a guide to the tongue. We Head and Tongue of the Wryneck (Junx torquilla). K 94 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. have seen the popinjay (Picus viridis, RAY) take its food in a similar manner ; and most probably every species of that genus does the same*." Mr. Knapp thus describes the habits of the wry- neck : " Shy and unusually timid," says he, " as if all its life were spent in the deepest retirement away from man, it remains through the day on some ditch-bank, or basks with seeming 1 enjoyment, in any sunny hour, on the ant-hills nearest to its retreat ; and these it depopulates for food by means of its long glutinous tongue, which, with the insects, collects much of the soil of the heaps, as we find a much larger portion of grit in its stomach than is usually met with in that of other birds f.'' The rapidity and variety in the movements of the tongue in these birds will not, however, appear to be so very extraordinary to the person who may have attended minutely to those of his own tongue ; for independently of the endless positions it assumes in speaking, it is no less varied in the processes of eating and drinking. Now there can be no motion without a mover ; and in animals every mover is a muscle or fleshy riband, which is fixed into the thing to be moved for the purpose of pulling it in the direction required. In the numerous motions of the human tongue there are only three pairs of these fleshy ribands employed ; and the threads or fibres of these are so interwoven near its tip, that the nicest art cannot trace them to their terminations, though it is probable every fibre has an action of its own. It is very remarkable, however, that none of the fibres cross the furrow which may be observed to divide the tongue into two equal portions. The muscles four on each side which thus compose the fleshy portion of the tongue, run backwards and are attached to a * Ornith. Diet. t Journ. of a Naturalist, p. 191, 3d ed. TASTE. 95 bone (05 hyoides) in shape of a horse-shoe, very moveable in consequence of its not being joined with any other bone, but hanging; among the muscles employed in speaking and swallowing. The motions of the lingual fibres are facilitated by fat or oil beautifully spread over them and around them. They play indeed in a mesh-work of fat which is poured out on their surface by countless pipes, many of them too small for the most powerful mi- croscope to discover. This mechanism, so carefully and minutely adapted to its end, affords a clear explanation of the rapid and various motions of the tongue; for though we admire and wonder at the contrivance, we are no longer astonished at these motions, when we examine this minute and beautiful mechanism of innumerable fibres washed by an oily fluid, constantly renewed every moment of our lives. The bird which is perhaps the most celebrated for its tongue is the flamingo (Phcenicopterus ruber), so much so that if Belon be right * Aristotle named the bird from its tongue (yXorns)t. This was esteemed by the luxurious Romans one of the greatest deli- cacies that could be brought to table; "Apicius," according to Pliny, " the most riotous glutton and belly-god of his time, being the first who taught men that the tongue of the phoenicopterus was a most sweet and delicate piece of meat J." Lampridius reckons among the extravagances of Heliogabalus, his ordering for his table dishes filled with flamingoes' tongues . The Roman epicure, Vitellius, also bringing together the delicacies of all parts of the world, caused to be served up at his entertainments, at once, the livers of scari, the roes of muraenae, the brains of pheasants and peacocks, and the tongues of flamin- *Oyseaux ; p. 199, fol. Paris, 1555. f Hist. Anim. viii. 12. I Holland's Plinie, 296. i. Hist. August, Script. 8vo. Leyden, 1671. 96 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. goes *. Macrobius and other emperors are said to have been fond of these tongues, though Galen, as quoted by Belon, ridicules the matter f. Whether it might be only on account of their rarity that such dishes were prized, we find the same opinion of the delicacy of the flamingo's tongue echoed by modern voyagers, such as Dutertre, Roberts, and Dampier, who describe the tongue as very large, with a lump of fat near the root furnishing a morsel fit for the king's table. Dampier might well ascertain the fact, as he and two others by secreting themselves killed fourteen of these birds at once J. Head and tongue of the Flamingo (Phcenicopterus ruber). The French Academicians describe the tongue of the flamingo as edged with fleshy papillae turned backward, the whole being large enough to fill the * Suetonius. f Oyseaux, p. 199. J Davies, Hist. Barb, p. 88. TASTE. 97 cavity of the under mandible of the bill. M. De Blainville's description nearly accords with this, as he represents it to be " large, soft, and studded with very fine papillae *." The same author gives a minute description of the tongue in ducks (Anatidce, LEACH), which he says possesses " a lingual membrane, large, expanded, and divided into two, by a deep longitudinal furrow. It is besides tolerably soft, but it differs in the several species in the disposition of the papillae which cover it. In the common duck (Anas Boschus) the middle furrow is furnished with a single row of small corneous hooks, of which the posterior is much larger than the others, and unites with a small oval disk, more elevated than the rest of the tongue, having its edge finely divided. The edge of the tongue itself is provided with a sort of scales, largest in front, formed by rather coarse hairs, disposed like the teeth of a comb. The rest of the membrane of taste is covered with soft papillae, very fine in front, larger and more tuberculated backwards. Before the opening of the windpipe are several rows of long papillae, somewhat horny, inclining backwards : the tip is rounded, thin, and finely papillated. In swans (Cygni) the tip and part of the posterior end of the tongue is, on the contrary, covered by stiff and close set hair ; the middle and the rest of the posterior portion are armed with a sort of bony plates, disposed in longitudinal lines, one on each side of the middle furrow, and the other more on the outside and back- wards. The long soft papillae, in fine, are seen behind a large rough tubercle f. J> In the parrots (Psittacidce), again, the tongue is thick, fleshy, and the lingual membrane soft, and pro- vided with papillae, disposed lengthwise upon a sort of anterior disk, supported by a corneous semicircle, * Anat. Coroparee, p. 260. * Ibid. p. 261. K3 98 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. which forms the under part of the tongue. The whole is covered by a very thin scarf-skin (epidermis), with a black pigment beneath it, the whole structure being evidently well fitted for an organ of taste*. We may remark in passing, that it is an erroneous notion to suppose it is the thick tongue of parrots which enables them to speak ; for starlings and mag- pies speak as well, and they have slender tongues f. In considering the organs of taste, it would be wrong to overlook the teeth, though they appear to be chiefly affected by acids, and by things which are very cold or very hot. M. Majendie mentions the experiments of a French dentist, which appear to prove that the teeth imbibe liquids ; but except in the case of acids, which act upon them by combining with the lime in the enamel or the bone, we do not see that the fact could be maintained. In another point of view, which we have not met with in authors, we may consider the teeth as exercising a function inter- mediate, if we may say so, between taste and touch, by ascertaining the hardness, softness, tenacity, elas- ticity and similar qualities of food, and we think it highly probable that it is in this way the little birds we have just mentioned ascertain the qualities of the berries which they fed upon or rejected J. The horny portion of a bird's bill, indeed, is a good deal similar in function to the teeth of other animals ; and upon this similarity M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire has pub- lished some curious facts in support of what he de- nominates his 'Theory of Analogues.' Though he says it may be considered a piece of pleasantry to assert that fowls have teeth, yet he finds he can not only keep his ground upon the point, but discovers every day fresh confirmatory facts, though as high an authority as he Blumenbach says " the jaws of birds are wholly destitute of teeth." He was led to the * Anat. Comparee, p. 259. t J. R. J J. R. Comp. Anat. . 49. TASTE. investigation by examining the beaks of two chicks of the ring paroquet (Psittaeus torquatus^ ALDROVAND), full grown, but which had not been able to break through the egg-shell. In these he observed a regular set of teeth of which he has published the figures. Teeth of the Ring Paroquet [chick] (Psittacus tonguatus). a, The upper and lower mandibles, showing: the teeth on their anterior margins. b, c, The same, viewed from beneath, and from above. d, Portion of the beak of the Blue Macaw {Ara araruuna), showing the teth worn, down by use. Upon finding teeth thus distinctly perceptible in the chick, the professor was naturally led to examine adult birds. Accordingly, on examining the beak of the blue macaw (Ara ararauna, LESSON), he found a similar arrangement of the horny substance of the beak to the dental organization in the chick of the paroquet, not indeed so rounded into distinct teeth, but little splinter-like pieces standing almost at right angles to the mandibles and closely compacted. In the instance of the paroquet chicks, he could trace nerves and blood-vessels running towards each toothlet; but in the adult macaw, the tube in which these had apparently lain in the embryo chick was filled with a cartilaginous substance. It will be in- teresting to compare his figures of the structure in the macaw with, those we have already given of the chick paroquet. 100 FACULTIES OF BIRDS, Teeth of the Blue Macaw (Ara amrawna), a, Upper mandible ; J, Lower mandible : in section, to show the teeth ; c, Portion of ditto, showing the teeth worn down by use. According to M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, then, the bill of a bird represents that sort of teeth which he terms composite, of which the teeth of the elephant furnish another example, and which consists of a series of plates or dentary cones, each covered with a pulpy plate or cone, and all re-united into one mass by enamel or a cortical envelope. The only diffe- rence of these consists in the nature of the sub- stance oozing from the nucleus, and in the constant absence of sockets and fangs. These interior cones or plates are also distinguishable in the substance of the bills of ducks, and are terminated in a more dis- tinct manner in little plates or denticulations, all around the edges of the bill. The latter differ from those of the paroquet in being permanent in adult birds. The divisions on the edges of the bill are much deeper and more numerous in the shoveller duck (Rhynchaspis clypeata, LEACH). These indeed very much resemble the whalebone, or baleen, as it has been called, of the whale*, and is intended, it would appear, for a similar purpose, namely, to * Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Syst. Dentaire des Mamm, et des Oiseaux, 8vo. Paris, 1824. TASTE. 101 a, The upper mandible of the Shoveller (Rhyncliaspis clypeata), in sec- tion. 6, The lower jaw of the Common Duck. assist in separating the peculiar food of the animal from what is extraneous, by a process analogous to filtration. It may be interesting* to give some details of this singular organ in the whale. We must first premise that the principal food of the whale con- sists of small shrimps, crabs (Cancer pedatus, C. oculatus, <^c.), medusa, and the like, which it separates from the sea-water by means of the appa- ratus of whalebone plates, six or seven hundred in number, placed across the jaws, whose whole surface they cover. These are all joined firmly by their upper edge to the palate ; for there are none attached to the lower jaw. Their broad ends are planted in the gum, and their narrow ends point to the upper part of the mouth. In a full-grown whale, the cen- tral blades are fifteen feet long ; but they gradually diminish towards the anterior and posterior ends of the cavity. Their greatest breadth is at the gum, and is there ten or twelve inches; and they are placed at such a distance from each other, that a hand could be slipped in edgewise between every pair. " They resemble," Mr. Scoresby says, " a frame of saws in a saw-mill." The weight of these blades in a large 102 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. whale amounts in all to a ton and a half; they form the framework, as it were, of the filter ; but some- thing more is necessary to complete it before it would answer the intended purpose. This, however, is accomplished in the most perfect manner by the free edges of the lamina? being split into innumerable bristles, which make the whole ceiling of the mouth look like one continued brush or cushion of hairs. This then is the admirable organ by whose means the vast bulk of the whale is nourished ; and here is another example of the Divine Wisdom, combined with unlimited power, in which the works of creation everywhere abound. Mr. Scoresby observes that " when the whale feeds, it swims with considerable velocity below the surface of the sea, with its jaws widely extended. A stream of water consequently enters its capacious mouth, and along with it large quantities of water-insects ; the water escapes again at the sides, but the food is entangled and sifted, as it were, by the whalebone, which, from its compact arrangement and the thick internal covering of hair, does not allow a particle the size of the smallest grain to escape *." The whale, however, does not proceed in the same manner as the shoveller, inasmuch as it does not suck in, but takes a mouthful of the water containing its prey, and as its mouth, according to Mr. Scoresby' s description, " presents a cavity as large as a room, and capable of containing a merchant-ship's jolly-boat full of men, being six or eight feet wide, ten or twelve feet high (in front), and fifteen or sixteen feet longf,"it can consequently gulp up an enormous quantity of water. The duck, again, employs suction to filter the mud, examining, with great care, the puddle, the brake, and every mixture likely to contain eligible food. The operation is excellently described by Paley. " The * Account of the Arctic Regions, vol. i, p. 469. f Ibid. p. 455. TASTE. 103 liquid," he says, " or semi-liquid substances, in which the animal has plunged her bill, she draws, by the action of her lungs, through the narrow interstices which lie between these teeth ; catching, as the stream passes across her beak, whatever it may happen to bring along with it that proves agreeable to her choice, and easily dismissing all the rest. Now, suppose the purpose to have been, out of a mass of confused and heterogeneous substances, to separate for the use of the animal, or rather to enable the animal to separate for its own, those few particles which suited its taste and digestion ; what more artificial, or more commodious, instrument of selection could have been given to it than this natural filter ? It has been observed also (what must enable the bird to choose and distinguish with greater acuteness, as well pro- bably as what greatly increases its luxury) that the bills of this species are furnished with large nerves,- that they are covered with a skin, and that the nerves run down to the very extremity*.'' M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire, pursuing his Theory of Analogues, of which we have already given a cha- racteristic specimen, proceeds to compare the filtering apparatus in the mouths of the whale and the shoveller (Rhynchaspis clypeata, LEACH) with the palates of other animals which he finds to be lined with similar wrinkles, the difference of one species from another consisting in little more than the greater or less degree of thickness in the cartilaginous plate^ forming the tranchant wrinkles. In the macaw this forms a single mass, only marked with a few streaks f. The various forms, indeed, which we meet among the bills of birds, are wonderfully adapted to their wants. Instead, as Paley remarks, of the fleshy lips and teeth of enamelled bone, there is "to perform the * Nat. Theology, p, 225. f Systeme Dentaire, p. 15. 104 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. Palate of the Blue Macaw. office of both, a hard substance (of the same nature with that which composes the nails, claws, and hoofs of quadrupeds) cut out into proper shapes and mechanically suited to the actions which are wanted. The sharp edge and tempered point of the sparrow's bill picks almost every kind of seed from its con- cealment in the plant ; and not only so, but hulls the grain, breaks and shatters the coats of the seed, in order to get at the kernel. The hooked beak of the hawk tribe separates the flesh from the bones of the animals which it feeds upon, almost with the cleanness and precision of a dissector's knife. The butcher-bird transfixes its prey upon the spike of a thorn whilst it picks its bones. In some birds of this class we have the cross-bill, i. e. both the upper and lower bill hooked, and their tips crossing. The spoon-bill enables the goose to graze, to collect its food from the bottom of pools, or to seek it amidst the soft and liquid substances with which it is mixed. The long tapering bill of the snipe and TASTE. 105 woodcock penetrates still deeper into moist earth, which is the bed in which the food of that species is lodged. This is exactly the instrument which the animal wanted. It did not want strength in its bill, which was inconsistent with the slender form of the animal's neck, as well as unnecessary for the kind of aliment upon which it subsists ; but it wanted length to reach its object*." In the curlew (Numenius arquata, LATHAM), besides, in the woodcock, and the snipe, there are, as in ducks, three large pairs of nerves almost equal to the optic nerve in thickness, which pass along the palate and then along the upper mandible to the very point of the bill. " If we look," says Sir Charles Bell, " to the man- dible of a bird, we shall find that it is withal a fly- trap hence, its motions must be rapid ; and the velocity is increased by the most obvious means ima- ginable, that is, by giving motion to both mandibles, instead of to one. When a dog snaps, he throws back his head, and thereby raises the upper jaw, at the same time that the lower jaw is dropped ; but these are slow and clumsy motions, pertaining to the muscles of the neck as well as of the jaws ; and the poor hound makes many attempts before he catches the fly that teazes him. But a swallow or fly-catcher makes no second effort, so admirably suited is the apparatus of prehension to the liveliness of the eye and the instinct. The adaptation of the instrument consists in this, that the muscles which open the lower mandible, by the same effort, open the upper one. A process of the lower mandible, projecting much be- hind the centre of motion, and the muscle which is attached to it, opens the bill ; but, at the same time, the lower mandible presses upon the bone, the os qua- dratum. Now, there is attached to this bone, pro- jecting forwards, with its anterior extremity fixed *Nat. Theology, p. 223. L 106 FACULTIES 0$ BIRDS. against the upper mandible, a shaft or process of bone, and this receives the pressure of the os quadra- turn when the muscle acts ; so that, being thrust for- wards like a bolt, it opens the upper mandible, which moves upon the skull. Here, then, is a piece of me- chanism as distinct as the lock of a gun, which is for the purpose, as we have said, of giving rapidity to the motions of the bill. Is it nearer the truth to con- sider this as a new apparatus, suiting the necessities of the creature, or an accidental result of the introduc- tion of a bone, which, in its proper office, has nothing to do with the jaw * ? " The most singular form of the bill in birds of this group (Grallatores, ILLIGER) is that of the avoset (Recurvirostra avocetta, GESNER), which is flexible like whalebone, and, contrary to the usual direc- tion of the bills of birds, is curved upwards, which led Buffon, in his usual style of theorizing, to suppose it to be " incapable of defence and of effort, an example of one of those errors or essays of nature, which, if carried a little farther, would destroy itself; for if the curvature of the bill were a degree increased, the bird could not procure any sort of food, and the organ destined for the support of life would infallibly occasion its destruction. The bill of the avoset may therefore be regarded as the extreme model which nature could trace, or at least preserve, and for that reason it is the most distant from the forms exhibited in other birds. It is even difficult, he adds, to conceive how this bird feeds by help of an instrument that can neither peck nor seize its prey, being only fit to rake in the softest mud. It seems to employ itself in searching the froth of the waves for fish- spawn, which appears to be its chief support f." *Bridgewater Treatise on the Hand, p,14L f Oiseaux, Art. L'Avocette, TASTE. 107 Nothing 1 could have been farther from fact than these hypothetical statements. Dr. Buchanan informs us that two avosets, which were wounded on an island in the Hoogly, near Calcutta, lived for some time afterwards, being fed with small fish, and these they readily scooped up from a pan of water*; while Wilson says of the American avoset (Recurvirostra Americana, PENNANT), that " it almost constantly frequents the shallow pools in the salt marshes, wading about, often to the belly, in search of marine worms, snails, and various insects that abound among the soft muddy bottoms of the pools f.'' In the same mistaken spirit, Buffon libels the con- trivance of the bill in the skimmer or cutwater (Rhynchops nigra), which is well described by Ray as consisting of two pieces extremely unequal, the lower mandible, being long and extended dispropor- tionately, and projecting far beyond the upper into which it falls like a razor into its haft J. From this Buffon concludes that " it can neither eat sidewise nor gather food, nor peck forwards." But though he here asserts in so many words that it cannot "gather food," he adds, that " to catch its prey with this awk- ward and defective instrument, the bird is obliged to fly skimming the surface, with, its lower mandible cutting the water." He further quotes M. De la Borde, who says these birds " feed on small fish which they catch on the wing where the water is shallow, keeping their lower mandible almost always in the water, and when they feel a fish they close both mandibles ," and of course secure the prey. So far, then, from the bill of the shearwater being "an awk- ward and defective instrument, 5 ' it appears, even from Buffon's own showing, to be as admirably adapted to * Montagu, Ornith. Diet. p. 14, 2d ed. t Atner. On. vii. 133. $ P. 104-5. Oiseaux, Art. Le Bec-en-Ciseaux. 108 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. the bird's mode of life as the bill of the avoset al- ready described. Head of the Shearwater (Ehyncops nigra). Another genus of birds whose bill is defective, according to Buffon, may be found in the creepers (erthia)i which, though " living upon the same in- sects as the woodpeckers, the nuthatches, and the tits, cannot, from the defect of the bill, extract the insects lodged under the bark, and which therefore follow those birds, making them their providers and dex- terously snatching the little prey*." On the contrary, whoever looks at the bill of our common creeper (Certhia familiar is) must at once perceive that its form is admirably adapted for searching for insects in the crevices of trees, being in fact curved in the same way as the beetle forceps used by insect collectors on the Continent for the same purpose^. It is more so indeed than the bill of the tits, which however is employed in a different way, being strong enough to enable the bird to chisel out a hole in bark or soft wood, though the creeper is no doubt equally suc- * Oiseaux, Art. Les Grimpereaux. f See Insect Miscell. p. 373, fig. a. The Creeper (Uerthia familiaris) , male and female, and nest. L3 TASTE. 109 cessful in finding- insects with its curved bill, as the tit that has to dig before they can be reached. It is moreover paying a bad compliment, unauthorized by facts, to the quickness of the carpenter-birds, to suppose they catch so few of the insects which they have been at the trouble to dislodge, as to leave enough for the creepers to subsist upon. The tits are besides so very voracious as to be unlikely to leave the least particle of any thing eatable behind them. A pair of the oxeye (Parus major, RAY), provincially named the willow-biter, or Joe Bent, "will," says Mr. Knapp, " attach themselves to a crop of peas in our gardens, and unremittingly persevere in the busi- ness of consuming them, from morning until night, without any abatement of appetite or lassitude from employ*." We have at present (1832) one of those birds which will, in the course of one day, devour more than half his own weight (ten drams) of hemp- seed, German paste, biscuit, or any other food what- ever; his incessant exercise in climbing about the cage, tumbling and throwing somersets, in every possible variety of attitude, enabling him no doubt to digest quantities comparatively so enormous f. * Journ. of a Naturalist, p. 207, 3d edit. f J. R. 110 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. CHAPTER V. TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. WHEN horses or rabbits are fed with oats, though their teeth can readily crush the grain, yet they accidentally swallow many grains uncrushed, which they cannot in consequence digest, their stomachs not being endowed with the power of acting on the solid grain. In order, indeed, as it should seem, to ensure the continuance of species, Providence has furnished the seeds of vegetables with a power of resisting destruction greatly superior to that of the plants produced from them, and hence it is probable the great difficulty of digesting unbroken seeds, as well as of destroying their vegetative life by great degrees of cold or heat*. But the circumstance of a horse or a rabbit swallowing imcrushed grain is only accidental, the greater portion of what they swallow being fitted for digestion; whereas in fowls which feed on grain it is all swallowed whole, their bills not being adapted for bruising it. Upon comparing these fowls, there- fore, with the horse and the rabbit, it becomes an obvious inquiry in what manner the unbruised grain is digested, an inquiry which was started in very early times, but not satisfactorily decided till Spal- lanzani and other modern physiologists instituted a series of experiments upon the subject. The most absurd fables indeed were current res- pecting the stones found in the stomachs of fowls, and the illustrious Redi was persuaded by his friend Morera to apply one of them he had brought from India to his forehead as a certain cure for a violent megrim (hemicrania) to which he was subject. The experiment, as might have been anticipated, * See Insect Transformations, p, 95-9. TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. Ill failed, to the great astonishment of Morera, who could only solve the difficulty by supposing Redi's headach to be different from those of Asia ; for, said he, " unless these stones be endowed with miracu- lous virtues, Nature, who makes nothing in vain, nor without a particular end, would not have pro- duced them in the stomachs of fowls." So also thought Redi ; but not being able to see any con- nection between their production and the cure of headachs, though Morera fortified his opinion by the authority of Pliny, Galen*, and Solinus, he set himself to discover some more rational explanation of the circumstance, and went through a number of ingenious experiments with this viewf. These we shall not however stop to detail, for though his conclusions were perhaps near the truth, those of subsequent observers are more adapted to our present purpose. It will be useful before detailing these experiments, to give some description of the organs of digestion in birds. The crop or craw (ingluviei) is a large membra- nous cavity, analogous, as many think, to the first stomach in ruminating animals, placed at the lower end of the gullet, in front of the chest, the gullet opening into its upper part, and recommencing about the middle of the bag, so that the crop is in some measure out of the course of the regular communica- tion between the two openings of the gullet. It receives the food when first swallowed, and by softening it by means of certain secretions, fits it for transmission into the organ called the gizzard. In birds which have no distinct crop, the lower part of the gullet expands into the form of a reservoir. To the crop succeeds another cavity in shape of a funnel (infundibulum), which may not improperly be called the second stomach, smaller than the crop, but varying considerably in different species. It is larger * De Incantatione. t Degli Anim. Viventi. 112 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. and much thicker than other parts of the tube, and is very distinctly marked in poultry, &c. (Rasores, ILLIGER). This cavity is furnished with an immense number of glands, called solvent or gastric glands, of a cylindrical form and placed close to each other. All of these glands are hollow, and secrete a digestive fluid, which is discharged from each through a small opening into the cavity. In the ostrich these glands are as large as garden peas, and their openings are easily recognised ; the cavity itself is moreover in this bird much larger than the proper stomach, so much so as to induce the celebrated Italian naturalist Valisnieri to term it the first stomach (primo ventricold)*. Cardiac cavity and gizzard of the Ostrich. The ostrich also differs from most other birds in the arrangement of these glands, which, instead of forming a belt or zone around the" cavity, are placed lengthwise in a long narrow stripe, commencing at * Notomia della Struzzo, p. 159, 4to. Pavia, 1726. TASTE OP GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 113 the termination of the gullet, and running along the front towards the gizzard. This band measures about twelve inches in length, and is about three inches at its greatest breadth. It is remarkable that this organ with its glands is largest in such birds as feed upon substances hardest of digestion. In some other birds it is, as we shall afterwards see, very small, and in others (Alcedo) wanting altogether*. The gizzard (ventriculus callosus) is a cavity of moderate size and of a flat spherical form, composed, according to Grewf, of six, and according to others of four, distinct muscles ; but the discrepancy is ex- plained by considering two of the six as conductors of the food, rather than as forming a portion of the organ, the greater part of which is composed of only two muscles, of a peculiarly dense and firm texture, hemi- spherical in shape, and lined with a thick membrane of Cardiac cavity and g'i2zard of the Ostrich, opened to show its internal structure. * Blumenbach, Comp. Anat. 97. t Comp. Anat. of the Stomach, p, 34. 114 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. the nature of gristle. This lining resembles the scarf- skin of the human body in becoming- gradually thicker by pressure and rubbing. Towards the cavity of the stomach it forms folds and depressions, which on the opposite surfaces are adapted to each other. The cavity of the gizzard is comparatively small and narrow, and its outlet is very near its entrance*. In many birds the outlet of the gizzard has no valve or other mechanism to prevent a portion of the contents from escaping before being duly digested, and consequently a waste of the food swallowed ensues, particularly when the bird has a very liberal supply. Sir Everard Home is disposed to consider these circumstances as intended by Providence to aid in the dissemination of plants ; and Sir Joseph Banks remarked to him that "the seeds which pass through the gizzards of birds, without having been acted on by the organs of digestion, are not only fit for vege- tation, but have the period of their vegetating much accelerated. The haws or berries of white-thorn require being buried in the earth for a year before they are fit to be sown ; but if turkeys are fed with them in autumn, and the duns; is sown, the plants begin to vegetate in the following spring. So ready are the seeds that have passed through the intestines of a bird to grow, that it is sufficient for them to be enveloped in the dung of the bird without being covered with earth, " At a country-house of Sir Joseph Banks, when the family are from home, the blackbirds are in the habit of perching on the iron rails of a stone staircase leading up to the house, and a currant-tree, a way- faring-tree,, and a yew-tree, grew up from the place where they dropped their dung, and were evidently dis- seminated by them. The various plants found in our hedges, as the dog-rose, the briars, the bramble, the common and water-elder, and a great variety of other * Blumenbach, Comp. Anat. 100, TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 115 plants, have the same origin, particularly cherry- trees*." With all deference, however, to our author, we have no doubt that the plum, cherry, and goose- berry trees, which we so frequently meet with in hedges and by road-sides, as frequently originate from fruit accidentally dropped by passengers as from birds in the manner suggested. One instance, however, of the dissemination of seeds by birds has long attracted attention in the singular parasitic shrub called the misseltoe (Viscum album). The berries of this shrub are eaten early in spring by the missel-thrush (Turdus viscivorus) and other birds, and the seeds passing un- digested, adhere to the branches of trees, where they vegetate. This method of propagation is indeed denied by some authors from the circumstance of the roots being always inserted on the underside of the branches ; but they surely forget that the rains must soon wash the seeds down from the upper part of the branch where they are first deposited. It was not till after many experiments were tried, that the mis- seltoe could be propagated artificially, and success, if we mistake not, was first obtained in the garden of Mr. Collins of Knaresborough, where many thriving plants were produced on the dwarf apple-tree, by rubbing the berries when ripe upon the smooth bark, so as to cause the seeds to adhere closely t- Mr. London directs the berries to be inserted into slits in the bark of a tree early in spring, and a bit of matting to be tied over them to protect them from birds J. To return to the structure of the gizzard ; it is obvious that every part of it is calculated for pro- ducing very powerful trituration, and apparently to compensate for the absence of grinding teeth in the animals. It results from the hard gristly structure of the gizzard in granivorous birds that it is pos- sessed of small sensibility, and hence, as Sir Everard * Comp. Anat. i. 287. f Hunter's Evelyn, t Encycl, of Plants, No, 2054. M 11(5 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. Home remarks, these birds never refuse food even when dying 1 , and when none of the functions of digestion are going on ; a circumstance which gives the by-standers hopes of recovery, for the bird will go on feeding till it drop down dead. If examined after death the gizzard is generally quite full ; whereas other animals would not eat any thing in such a case, though they might perhaps drink, water being amongst the last things which the dying desire and rarely ever loathe. In order to ascertain the peculiar powers of the gizzard in grinding and in digesting, Spallanzani, repeating and extending the experiments of Reaumur, procured small glass and metal balls and tubes, perforated with numerous holes, and filling them with different kinds of food, he caused them to be swallowed by barn-door fowls, turkeys, and other birds. The balls having been filled with barley and other grain, in their entire unbruised state, he allowed them to remain from twenty-four to forty-eight hours in the gizzard, when they were taken out and examined. In all such cases, he could not, after the most attentive examination, discover that the digestive fluid had effected the least change on the grains, though from the numerous holes in the balls they were fully exposed to its action. The grains indeed had suffered no diminution of size and exhibited no marks of dissolution. Similar experiments were repeatedly tried upon birds furnished with strong muscular gizzards, and the result was uniformly the same, no effect, in any instance, being produced by the digestive fluid upon the grain contained in the balls. From these experiments proving unsuccessful, Spallanzani was led to suspect that, though the digestive fluid was incapable of dissolving the grains in their entire state, it might probably act upon them when sufficiently bruised or comminuted. To as- TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 117 certain this point, accordingly, he rilled his balls with bruised grains, introducing them as before into the gizzards of various fowls ; and his conjecture was partly verified, for in all the numerous trials which he made he invariably found that the grains were more or less dissolved in proportion to the time the balls were permitted to remain in the gizzard. Before the process of digestion can commence, therefore, the grains must be bruised, and such as are not bruised before passing into the gizzard are there subject to the action of the two gristly surfaces already described, which in granivorous birds seem to produce a rotatory motion upon the food in con- sequence of one side of the cavity not corresponding exactly to the other, a conformation that has been well explained by Sir Everard Home. "In the turkey," he says, "when the external surface of the gizzard is first attentively examined, viewing that side which is anterior in the living bird, and on which the two bellies of the muscle and middle are more distinct, there being no other part to The gizzard of a Turkey, opened to show its grinding surfaces. 118 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. obstruct the view, the belly of the muscle on the left side is seen to be larger than on the right, as may be observed in the annexed engraving. 44 This appears on reflection to be of great advantage in producing the necessary motion ; for if the two muscles were of equal strength they must keep up a greater degree of exertion than is necessary ; while, in the present case, .the principal effect is produced by that of the left side, and a smaller force is used by that of the right to bring the parts back again. "The two bellies of the muscle by their alternate action produce two effects ; the one, a constant friction on the contents of the cavity ; the other, a pressure on them. This last arises from the swelling of the muscle inwards ; which readily explains all the instances which have been given by Spallanzani and others, of the force of the gizzard upon sub- stances introduced into it, a force which is found by their experiments always to act in an oblique direction. The internal cavity, when opened in this distended state, is found to be of an oval form, the long diame- ter being in the line of the body : its capacity nearly equal to the size of the pullet's egg ; and on the sides there are ridges in the horny coat, in the long direction of the oval. " When the horny coat is examined in its internal structure, the fibres of which it is formed are not found in a direction perpendicular to the ligamentous substance behind it ; but in the upper portion of the cavity they have a direction obliquely upwards. " From this form of cavity it is evident that no part of the sides are ever intended to be brought in contact ; and that the food is triturated by being mixed with hard bodies and acted on by the power- ful muscles which form the gizzard*." Grew had long before most correctly investigated the action of the gizzard, so far as it is mechanical, * Comp. Anat. i. 316. TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 119 and aptly describes it as an organ " wherein the meat, as in a mill, is ground to pieces, and then pressed by degrees into the guts in the form of a pulp ; for which purpose the deductor serves to deliver the meat from the echinus to the laboratory, as a hopper to a mill ; the four grinders, or chief operators, are the millstones*." Agreeably to these views, it has been recorded that Felix Plater found an onyx, a precious stone of peculiar hardness, which had been swallowed by a hen, diminished no less than one-fourth of its bulk in four days ; and a French gold piece of money lost in the same way sixteen grains of its weightt. Reaumur and Spallanzani, again, found that when tin tubes full of grain were introduced into the sto- machs of turkeys, and allowed to continue there a considerable time, they were broken, crushed, or distorted in a most singular manner. " I have seen," says Spallanzani, " instances without number of such contusions, one of which I cannot forbear here relat- ing. Having found that the tin tubes which I used for common fowls were incapable of resisting the stomach of turkeys, and not happening at that time to be provided with any tin plate of greater thickness, I tried to strengthen them by soldering to the ends two circular plates of the same metal, perforated only with a few holes for the admission of the gastric fluid. But this contrivance was ineffectual ; for after the tubes had been twenty hours in the stomach of a turkey, the circular plates were driven in, and some of the tubes were broken, some compressed, and some distorted in the most irregular manner. " I then tried the following means of preventing this inconvenience. Having perforated the circular plates in the centres, I passed a wire through the * Comp. Anat. of the Stomach, ix. 40-1. f Swammerdam, Biblia Natures, p. 163. M3 120 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. holes, and bound it tight round outside of the tubes ; when the two ends met, they were twisted together ; consequently, though the soldering should be de- stroyed, yet this contrivance would prevent the circular plates from receding from the ends of the tube, unless the wire passing through them should be broken. I prepared four tubes in this manner, and gave them to a turkey six months old. After they had remained a whole day in the stomach, I killed the animal ; and my astonishment was extreme at finding that the tubes, in spite of my expedient, were very much damaged. All the iron wires were broken, two where they were twisted, and the two others at their entrance into the tubes : the plates, so far from remaining soldered to the tubes, were found amongst the food ; they were not flat as at first, but some were bent so as to form an angle, some curved, and in others one part was pressed close to the other. The tubes had sustained equal injury ; two of them were flattened as if they had been struck by a ham- mer, the third was moulded into the shape of a gutter, the soldering of the fourth was destroyed, and it was expanded like a wafer. " These phenomena will less surprise those who have learned from Redi * and Magalottit how ducks, fowls, and pigeons pulverize hollow globules of glass in a very short space, and even solid ones in a few weeks. I have already observed, that I re- peated these experiments with the greatest success. Some spherules of glass blown by the lamp, and so thick that they would seldom break when thrown on the ground, were generally reduced to small frag- ments, after remaining three hours in the stomachs of hens or capons ; the fragments were not sharp as when they are broken by the efforts of the hand, but * Esperienze intorno a Cose naturali. f Saggio di naturali Esperienzi. TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 121 as obtuse as if their edges and points had been abraded by a grinding-stone. The longer the sphe- rules continued in the stomach, the more minutely were they triturated ; so that in a few hours they were reduced to a mass of particles, not larger than grains of sand. The rapidity also of this process appears in some measure proportional to the size of the animal. A wood-pigeon generally breaks them less speedily than a chicken, a chicken than a capon, but a goose the soonest of all. The reason is plain, since the larger species have thicker and more power- ful stomachs*.'' It appeared from these experiments that smooth and blunt substances, though thus violently acted upon, did not injure the texture of the stomach. Spallanzani hence bethought him of trying what effects would be produced by sharp and angular sub- stances, and upon introducing into the gizzard of a cock a piece of rough jagged glass, he found that in the space of twenty-four hours, the angles were all broken off, without having wounded or even scratched any part of the stomach. When we take this into account, therefore, we ought not to consider the sub- sequent experiments of the Abbe so very cruel and revolting as at first sight they must appear. For the purpose, accordingly, of discovering the extent of this singular power of the gizzard to break sharp points without sustaining injury, " twelve strong tin needles," says Spallanzani, " were firmly fixed in a ball of lead, the points projecting about a quarter of an inch from the surface. Thus armed, it was co- vered with a case of paper and forced down the throat of a turkey. The bird retained it for a day and a half without showing the least symptoms of uneasi- ness. Why the stomach should have received no injury from so horrid an instrument I cannot explain : * Dissertations, i. 14. 122 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. the points of the twelve needles were broken off close to the surface of the ball, except two or three of which the stumps projected a little higher. Two of the points of the needles were found among the food ; the other ten I could not discover, either in the sto- mach or the long' track of the intestines; and there- fore concluded that they had passed out*." In another experiment, which without knowing the previous facts we might justly have deemed still more cruel, Spallanzani tells us he fixed " twelve small lancets, very sharp both at the point and edges, in a similar ball of lead. They were such as I use for the dissection of small animals. The ball was given to a turkey-cock, and left eighteen hours in the stomach ; at the expiration of which time that organ was opened, but nothing appeared except the naked ball, the twelve lancets having been broken to pieces: I discovered three in the large intestines, pointless and mixed with the other contents ; the other nine were missing and had probably been voided. The stomach was as sound and entire as that which had received the needles. " Two capons, of which one was subjected to the experiment with the needles, and the other with the lancets, sustained them equally well. My next wish was to know how much time elapsed before the be- ginning of the fractures; and by repeated experiments on turkeys, I found that these sharp bodies begin to be broken and lose their shape in two hours. This at least happened in two individuals of the species : in one four of the lancets, and in the other three of the needles were broken within that space ; the others were blunted, but continued fixed in the balls f." An acquaintance with these singular experiments is calculated in part to diminish our surprise at finding stones in the gizzards of fowls, a fact which, * Dissertations, i. 18. t Ibid, i. 19. TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 123 as we have already mentioned, has been very diffe- rently explained by naturalists. These stones were considered by the Italian naturalist Csesalpinus, rather as medicinal, than as a common auxiliary to digestion ; while Boerhaave supposed them to act as absorbents for any superabundant acid in the stomach ; and Whytt of Edinburgh supposed the irritation, which he inferred them to produce, useful as a stimulant to the obtuse, almost insensible, coats of the gizzard *. Borelli again formed the very extravagant idea that the stones in question contributed directly to nutri- tion, an opinion which is refuted by the experiments of Redi, who, having shut up two capons with nothing but water and little pebbles for food, found that they drank much water, but died, one in twenty, the other in twenty-four days, neither of them having swallowed a single storief. An opinion little less fanciful adopted by Blumen- bach ascribes to the stones the especial purpose of killing the grains of corn, which, while capable of germinating, would resist the action of the digestive fluid J. This requires no refutation ; but it has been supposed to be partially corroborated from the similar circumstance of pebbles being swallowed by the pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) ; for as the food of this animal consists of insects swallowed entire, the pebbles have been thought necessary for the purpose of crushing the insects and depriving them of life, so as to render them capable of being digested . Others have supposed these pebbles intended to sheath the gizzard in order to enable it to digest, or at least to break down into small fragments, the hard * Phys. Essays, 8vo. Edinb. 1766. f Esperienze, p. 84; Osserv. p. 91-2. J Comp. Anat. 100. Bostock, Physiol. iii. 408, note. 124 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. angular substances which maybe swallowed*; but Spallarizani has shown by his experiments that the muscular action of the gizzard is equally powerful, whether the small stones are present or absent. To ascertain this point, he took wood-pigeons the moment they escaped from the egg, and fed and nursed them himself till they were able to peck. " They were then,'* he continues, " confined in a cage and supplied at first with vetches soaked in warm water, and afterwards in a dry and hard state. In a month after they had begun to peck, hard bodies, such as tin tubes, glass globules, and fragments of broken glass, were intro- duced with the food. Care was taken that each pigeon should swallow only one of these substances. In two days afterwards they were killed. Not one of the stomachs contained a single pebble ; and yet the tubes were bruised and flattened, and the spherules and bits of glass blunted and broken. This happened alike to each body, nor did the smallest laceration appear on the coats of the stomach. 44 I did not confine my observations to this one species. With the same view, I set under a turkey- hen several eggs, partly her own, and partly of a common hen. When the chickens were hatched I took charge of them myself, and employed the same precautions as with the wood-pigeons. They were confined for fifty-five days in separate cages, and their food consisted of various sorts of grain. The last days they had, to live I introduced into their gizzards hard indigestible substances. Upon exami- nation the stomachs appeared to be free from stones, yet the fragments arid spherules of glass, and the tin tubes, were not on this account either the less or the more bruised or broken. Hence then,' 5 he adds, " we have at length a decision of the famous question * See Smellie, Philosophy of Natural History, vol. i. ch. 8. TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 126 concerning the use of these pebbles, so long- agitated by authors. It appears that they are not at all neces- sary to the trituration of the firmest food, or the hardest foreign substances, contrary to the opinion of many anatomists and physiologists, as well ancient as modern ; I will not however deny, that when put in motion by the gastric muscles, they are capable of producing some effects on the contents of the sto- mach*." Blumeribach, however, denies both these facts and Spallanzani's conclusion, of the stones being swallowed without design, from mere stupidity ; and asserts that " these stones are so essential to due di- gestion that birds grow lean without them, although they may be most copiously supplied with food I;" a fact attested also by Dr. BostockJ. Without deciding this contested point, we shall add the remarks of our distinguished physiologist, John Hunter, upon the opinion of Spallanzani. " In con- sidering," says he, " the strength of the gizzard, and its probable effects when compared with the human stomach, it must appear that the gizzard is in itself very fit for trituration. We are not, however, to conclude that stones are entirely useless; for 'if we compare the strength of the muscles of the jaws of animals who masticate their food, with those of birds who do not, we shall say that the parts are well calculated for the, purpose of mastication ; yet we are not from thence to infer that the teeth in such jaws are useless, even although we have proof that the gums do the business when the teeth are gone. If stones are of use, which we may reasonably conclude they are, birds have an advantage over animals having teeth, so far as stones are always to be found, while the teeth are not renewed. If we constantly find in * Dissertations, i. 26. t Comp. Anat. 100. J Physiology, iii. 458, note. 126 FACULTIES OF BIRDS, an organ substances which can only be subservient to the functions of that organ, should we deny them that use, although the part can do its office without them? The stones assist in grinding down the grain, and by separating its parts allow the gastric juice to come more readily in contact with it*.'* *' Very few of the soft-billed birds," says the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, " eat gravel : the nightingale never, nor does the redstart. The whinchat in con- finement will sometimes swallow stones as large as swan-shot, which pass through very soon ; but he seems to eat them like a fool, taking them for victuals, in the same manner as I have seen tame redstarts, which do not naturally choose vegetable food, swallow green peas, after passing several minutes in trying to kill them. But these birds have the power of ex- pectorating the shells and hard parts of insects which they cannot digest, throwing them off in little oval balls. Young birds before they feed themselves appear to be endowed with powers of digestion which they do not afterwards retain. There is no difficulty in rearing any young Sylvia till they are full grown ; but after this period the difficulty of preserving them by artificial food commences. The redstart gives to its young such beetles as the aged bird is afraid of swallowing. It feeds its young entirely with flies and coleopterous insects. The brown wren does the same, often giving them the large lambda moth. The yellow wren gives aphides and small green cater- pillars. Full grown white-throats, which have been reared in a cage, at the sight of a green caterpillar immediately perk up their heads, and cry etchat, etchat. Tame Sylvice are such fools that if the floor of their cage is cleaned by a flannel rubber or woollen mop, they eat the woollen hairs which form an indi- * On the Animal Economy, p. 196-8. TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 127 gestible ball in their stomach, which they cannot expectorate, and which is sure to kill them *." According to Colonel Montagu, granivorous birds have some power of retaining the small stones taken into the gizzard, or evacuating them when they become polished and less useful, though they cannot disgorge them as birds of prey do the pellets of bones and feathers which they are unable to digest. He thinks that in a state of nature birds swallow only a whole- some portion of these stones, whereas domesticated birds frequently devour too many. He has known instances in which the whole cavity of the gizzard was filled with gravel; and in particular he mentions part of a brood of ducks, half grown, which swallowed so great a quantity of gravel as not only to fill the gizzard, but the crop and even the gullet: they soon after diedf. In the swan and the goose, whose food is similar, but different from that of the turkey, there is no distinct crop, but the lower part of the gullet is expanded so as to form a reservoir to store up the food. This structure is perhaps peculiarly adapted to act upon grass, which, according to Sir Everard Home, " appears more difficult of digestion than any other vegetable used for food ; and no preparation hitherto employed has rendered the human stomach capable of converting it into nourishment {." The goose has the digestive glands more complex than the swan, a peculiarity which may be probably ac- counted for, as Sir Everard thinks, from the swan's feeding on the weeds and coarse grass growing by the sides of rivers ; whereas the goose, from feeding on the common grass of the fields, is the only exclu- sively grazing bird in this country . * Notes to White's Selborne, 8vo. edit. 1833. t Ornith. Diet. p. 498. 2d edit. | Phil. Trans, 1810. Ibid. N 128 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. The gizzard of a Swan, opened to show its grinding surfaces. Our author, however, seems to have overlooked an- other native bird, the little bustard (Otis minor, RAY), which, according to Montagu, has an enormous sto- mach, and in one he examined, this was crammed with herbage*. In another examined by Selby, " the sto- mach was distended by various grasses and the stems of clover f." The structure of the stomach in this bird leads to the conclusion that the leaves and ten- derer parts of plants are readily macerated and prepared in the stomach by the united action of the digestive fluid and animal heat, rather than by the friction of its sides. From the stomach of the little bustard not being furnished with that strong gristly substance, found in birds which feed on grain and other hard substances that require great muscular power to break or bruise them, it may be fairly in- *0rn. Diet. p. 299. t Illustrations, p. 281. TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 129 ferred that, under certain circumstances, grass and other herbs are rendered easy of digestion arid yield their utmost possible nutriment without trituration. It certainly is not a little singular that the stomachs of carnivorous animals, which can digest even the hardest bones, cannot act upon grass, a fact exem- plified in the dog; for when he eats grass, as he sometimes does by way it is supposed of a medicine, he either ejects it again or it passes through his intes- tines altogether unaltered. The interesting facts furnished by comparative anatomy seem to authorize the inference that the varieties of structure, more particularly of the solvent glands, are for adapting the bird to the supply of provisions afforded by the country it inhabits. Every one of these glands, accordingly, produces a secretion fitted for the digestion of all the different kinds of food, and whatever complexity is found in the organs is chiefly for the purpose of economizing the food, by preventing it from escaping till it is thoroughly digested. In addition to the instances which we have already mentioned. Sir E. Home gives the following illustrations. " The cassowary of Java (Casuarius Emeu, LESSON), as it lives in the most luxuriant country in the world, has its digestive organs adapted to such abundance. The gullet is unusually large : it dilates into the cardiac cavity, which is a direct continuation of it, and is everywhere studded over with small gastric glands of a simple structure : these are- placed on each side in oblique rows, which terminate in a middle row, extending the whole length of the cavity. The termination is marked on the lower part by the commencement of the lining, which covers the whole internal surface, being very thin for a little way, as well as upon the anterior part, becoming thicker and thicker posteriorly, where the cavity of the gizzard is situated. There is an oblique valvular 130 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. constriction, formed by muscular fibres, between the cardiac cavity and that of the gizzard ; there is also a canal leading from the cardiac cavity, the gizzard forming a pouch projecting from the posterior side ; so that the food does not necessarily go into the gizzard, but may either do so, or pass on into the duodenum, and this most probably at the will of the bird. The cuticular lining extends a little way below the cavity of the gizzard, and terminates upon the edge of a broad valve, which maybe considered as its boundary, separating it from a large oval cavity about four inches long. The oblique valve between the cardiac cavity and the gizzard retains the food, and allows the liquor of the solvent glands to mix with it before it enters the gizzard, and probably a great part of it never enters this cavity at all. The passage from the digestive organs is so free, that the stones swallowed for the use of the gizzard readily pass into the intestines, which is not the case in others ; and these intestines are wider and shorter than in any other bird. The fact of the stones passing along the intestines I learnt from Sir Joseph Banks, who, while he was visiting the menagerie at the Cape of Good Hope, was much astonished to see a cassowary, which was feeding very voraciously on fruits, void a large quantity of stones, some of them of considerable size. " The cassowary of New South Wales (Dromiceius Nova Hollandice, VIEILLOT), as it lives in a country naturally fertile, but less luxuriant than Java, has its digestive organs formed on the same principle ; but differs in this particular, that the solvent glands are larger in size, although similar in structure. They are placed in regular transverse rows ; the gizzard is thicker, has a stronger lining, and is rather more in the direct line of receiving food from the cardiac cavity," while " the passage from the stomach to the intestine is less open. The Cassowary (CasuaHus Emeu'). N 3 TASTE OF GRANIVOfcOUS BIRDS. 131 The stomach of the Emeu, opened to show the gastric glands. Cardiac cavity and gizzard of the Nandu. The same, opened to show the gastric glands. 132 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. " In the American ostrich (Rhea JVtfftdM, VIEILLOT), a native of a less productive soil, the gastric glands are fewer in number, when compared with its size, than in other birds. They only occupy a small space of a circular form, on the posterior side of the cardiac cavity; the smallness of their number is, however, compensated by the complexity of their structure, similar to that of the gastric glands in the beaver. The cardiac cavity is dilated to a large size, as in the cassowary, and there is a similar oblique muscular valve by which it is separated from the gizzard. The digastric muscle is stronger in its power, and the tendons between the two bellies of the muscle are beautifully distinct. The orifice leading from the gizzard is so very narrow, that nothing can pass out of it that has not been reduced to a small size.'' But " the stones and other hard bodies which those birds swallow must, from their weight, force their way into the gizzard. " The African ostrich (Struthio camelus), an inhabitant of the desert, where there are very few plants, has means of economizing its food much beyond the others. The gastric glands are not only more complex, but more numerous ; their secretion is applied to the food in the cardiac cavity, in which it is retained by its gravity, is triturated by the extraneous hard bodies that are swallowed, and it is then forced up into the gizzard to undergo a second trituration. All such substances must remain in the cardiac cavity, both from its being the most depending part, and from the cavity of the gizzard being too small to admit their entering it. The cardiac cavity, in the instance which I examined, contained stones of various sizes, pieces of iron and half-pence j but between the grinding surfaces of the gizzard were only broken glass, beads of different colours, and hard gravel mixed with the food*." * Home, Comp, Anat, i, 295, TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 133 M. Monibeillarcl thinks the ostrich swallows stones and metallic substances with the view of ballasting its body for running-, as bees and storks have been fabulously asserted to carry stones for a similar purpose*. The alligator of South America is another anomalous instance of a similar kind. The Indians on the banks of the Oroonoko assert that, previously to an alligator going in search of prey, it always swallows a large stone, that it may acquire additional weight to aid it in diving and dragging its victims under water. An officer in the Colombian Navy who mentions this, tells us, that being somewhat incredu- lous upon the point, (how could he be otherwise ?) he was satisfied of the fact by Bolivar, who, in order to convince him, shot several alligators with his rifle, and in the stomachs of all of them were found stones varying in weight according to the size of the animal. The largest killed, he says, was about seventeen feet in length, and had within him a stone wei^hinff from iii sixty to seventy pounds j I Whatever may be the object of the ostrich, there can be no doubt of the fact of its swallowing stones I and metal, even red hot iron J, it has been asserted, though Albertus Magnus upon trying the experiment could not prevail on one to swallow bits of iron . M. Perrault found in the stomach of an ostrich seventy doubloons, most of them worn down and reduced to three-fourths of their size, the corrosion being con- fined to the convex side which was most exposed to the attrition of the gizzard. Those which swallowed copper were evidently poisoned by it, for they soon died ||. Vallisnieri, in his admirable account of the ostrich, informs us that bits of wood, iron, or glass, which * See Insect Architecture, p. 42. f Recollections of Venezuela. } Marmal, Description d'Afrique. Hist. Anim. |] Mem. Acad, des Sciences, 1705, &c. 134 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. have remained some time in the stomach, are not smooth or shining, as they would be if worn by the friction of the coats ; but are rough, furrowed, or perforated, presenting precisely such an appearance as would be produced by the corrosion of a solvent. This solvent reduces the hardest and the softest bodies alike to impalpable molecules, which may be observed by the microscope, and even by the naked eye. Vallisnieri found in the stomach of the ostrich a nail fixed in one of the sides, in such a manner as to pre- vent its meeting the opposite side, and consequently the compression of the contents ; yet the food was as completely dissolved in this ventricle as in another in which the usual action took place, and *his at least proves that the digestion is riot performed solely by trituration. He observed a copper thimble in the stomach of a capon, which was corroded only where it touched the gizzard, and consequently where it was least exposed to the attrition of the hard substances ; whence the solution of metals in the gallinaceous tribe must be ascribed rather to the action of some menstruum, than to the pressure and resistance of the coats, and the analogy naturally extends to the ostrich. He discovered in the stomach of an ostrich a piece of money, which had been so completely corroded that its weight was reduced to three grains*. We have remarked, that the fruit-eating birds seem indifferent to the comminution of their food before it is swallowed. The black-cap and the fauvette (Philomela horlensis) will accordingly swallow berries of so large a size, that it might previously appear impossible for their little gullets to admit them. In the case of very ripe grapes or cherries, we can better comprehend this from the ready compressibility of the fruit ; but the hard, incompressible berries of the ivy are apparently swallowed with equal ease and * Notomia deilo Struzzo, 4to, Padova, 1626, TASTE OF GRANIVOROUS BIRDS. 135 no less relish, than a bit picked out of an Orleans plum or a ripe pear. The seed-eating birds, on the other hand, always endeavour when they can to break the husk, and caged canaries or goldfinches may thus be observed to spend more than half their time in shelling off the husks of the larger seeds, though rape, millet, or poppy seed is too small to get the edges of the bill to act upon it, and has therefore to be swallowed unbroken*. Whether the gravel or sand which is always given to cage-birds, and without which it is said they will not thrive, contributes to the trituration of these seeds in the stomach, has not been ascertained, and has indeed been less attended to than the analogous circumstance in the case of poultry. *J.R. 136 FACULTIES OF BIRDS* CHAPTER VI. TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS. IT was remarked by Plato, that when animals were created, peculiar species of food were assigned to each, " to one herbs, to another the fruits of trees ; to some roots, and to a distinct race, it was permitted to feed upon the flesh of other creatures*." The Grecian philosopher, however, does not seem to have had so clear a notion of the order in which this assignment was made as our modern inquirers, inasmuch as he appears to consider it subsequent to the provisions of strength, swiftness, natural weapons of defence, and means of protection from the in- clemencies of the weather. Were we to follow out Plato's views according to the interpretation which they will justly bear, we must conclude that the peculiar species of food was appointed to each animal without reference to its organization, whereas there cannot be a shadow of doubt of this being the very reverse of the fact. A beautiful passage in Buffon appears to us to place the matter in its true light. 41 The mode of life," he says, " the habits, and economy of animals, are not so free as might be supposed. Their actions result not from inclination and choice, but are the necessary effects of their peculiar organization and structure. Nor do they seek ever to infringe or evade the law of their constitution ; the eag-le never abandons his rocks, nor the heron her shores : the one shoots down from the * Protagoras, 57. TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS. 137 aerial regions to plunder or murder the lamb, founding his prescriptive right on his strength, his weapons, and his habitual rapine ; the other, standing in the mire, patiently expects the glimpse of its fugitive prey. The woodpecker never forsakes the trees round which he is appointed to creep. The snipe must for ever remain in the marshes, the lark in its furrows, and the warbler in its groves. All the granivorous birds seek the inhabited countries, and attend on the progress of cultivation : while those which prefer wild fruits and berries perpetually fly before us, and cherish the wilds, and forests, and mountains ; there, remote from the dwellings of man, they obey the injunctions of Nature. She retains the hazel-grous under the thick shade of pines ; the solitary blackbird under his rock ; the oriole in the forests, which resound with its notes ; while the bustard seeks its subsistence on the dry commons, and the rail in wet meadows. Such are the eternal, immutable decrees of Nature, as permanent as their forms ; these great possessions she never resigns, and on these we vainly hope to encroach. And are we not continually reminded of the weakness of our empire? She obliges us even to receive troublesome and noxious species ; the rats make a lodgement in our houses, the martins in our windows, the sparrows in our roofs ; and when she conducts the stork to the top of our old ruinous towers, already the habitation of the mournful family of nocturnal birds, does she not hasten to resume the possessions which we have usurped for a time, but which the silent lapse of ages will infallibly restore to her? " Thus the numerous and diversified species of birds, led by instinct arid confined by their wants, to the different districts of Nature, have apportioned among themselves the air, the earth, and the water. Each holds its place and enjoys its little domain, and o JCj&CIl 138 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. the means of subsistence, which the peculiarity of its faculties will augment or abridge. Thus the spoon- bill seems formed for gathering* shell-fish ; the small flexible strap and the reflected arch of the avoset's bill reduce it to live on fish-spawn ; the oyster-catcher has an axe-shaped bill, calculated for opening the shells ; and the crossbill could not subsist were it not dexterous in plucking the scales from the fir-cones. Lastly, the shearbill could neither eat sidewise, nor gather food, nor peck forwards ; its bill consisting of two pieces extremely unequal, the lower mandible being long and extended disproportionately, projects far beyond the upper, into which it falls like a razor into its haft*." Even leaving the peculiar form of the bills out of consideration, the organization of the stomach, and of other internal parts, is so different in birds which feed on animal food from what it is in those that feed on vegetables, as to lead to a similar conclusion. It is well known that ruminating animals, such as the cow and sheep, have a quadruple stomach, or rather a series of four stomachs ; while those which feed on animal substances, as the cat and swine, have only a single stomach, which is besides more simple in structure. A similar difference of organization oc- curs among birds, as we shall now detail, beginning with carnivorous birds which have the most simple stomachs. The first peculiarity which strikes an observer in the organs of carnivorous birds is the great width of the gullet, for the purpose, it would appear, of facilitat- ing the deglutition of large pieces of food, and also the regurgitation of feathers and other substances which cannot be readily digested. In the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetas, ALDROVAND), for example, the gullet is dilated near its termination, and there is a * Oiseau*, Art, Le 13ec-en-Ciseaux. TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRD?, 139 regularly formed single crop of large dimensions rather on the right side, resting in the hollow of the bone, which corresponds to the collar-bones (claviculee) in quadrupeds. Below this is the cavity into which the pipes open from the gastric or solvent glands, these forming a broad compact belt. These glands are each very distinct, of a cylindrical form; with very small canals, or villous internal surfaces, and thick coats open at one end, and closed and rounded off at the other. They lie parallel to one another, and nearly at right angles to the membrane through which they open; the closed end being slightly turned upwards, so as to make the orifice the most depending part. At the lower end of the belt there is a second con- traction, separating it from the gizzard immediately below, which is surrounded by a digastric muscle of weak power, and has a soft internal membrane, as have all birds that live on animal food*. M. Reaumur tried several curious experiments on the digestive powers of the kite, for which purpose he employed tin tubes filled with different substances, particularly flesh, and this being after a time ejected, according to the custom of the bird, enabled him to examine the effects produced. As the flesh thus enclosed was, when retained long enough in the stomach, completely digested (not merely macerated as M. Batigne insinuatest), he concluded that the digestion was caused without any trituration by the gastric fluid alone. The Abbe Spallanzani made similar experiments upon various birds, some of which, it may be interesting to mention, particularly those with the eagle, which he says was the common eagle of Buffon, and the black eagle of Linnaeus, * Sir E. Home, Comp. Anat. i. 273 ; Blumenbach, by Coulson, p. 100. f Reflect, sur les Exper. de M. cle Reaumur. 140 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. both synonymous with the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetas). " The ordinary food of my eagle," says the Abbe, " consisted of live cats and dogs, when I could procure them. It easily killed dogs much larger than itself. When I forced one of these animals into the apart- ment where I kept the eagle, it immediately ruffled the feathers on the head and neck, cast a dreadful look at the dog, and taking a short flight, immediately alighted on his back. It held the neck firm with one foot, by which the dog was prevented from turning his head to bite ; and with the other grasped one of the flanks, at the same time driving the talons into the body ; and in this attitude it continued till the dog expired, in the midst of fruitless outcries and efforts. The beak had been hitherto unemployed, but it was now used for making a small hole in the skin, which was gradually enlarged ; from this the bird began to tear away and devour the flesh, and went on till it was satisfied. I must not omit observing that it never ate any skin, nor intestine, nor bone, except very small ones, such as the ribs of cats and small dogs. Notwithstanding this ferocity, and violent impetuosity in attacking animals, it never gave any molestation to man. I, who was the feeder, could safely enter the apartment where the bird was kept, without any means of confining its movements, and beheld these assaults without dread or apprehension ; nor was the eagle at all hindered from attacking the living prey I offered it, or rendered shy by my presence. As it was not always in my power, or at least in my will, to give it living food (for I had not always dogs and cats at hand ; and fowls, which are equally acceptible, were too expensive), I substituted flesh, which, though it was not so well relished, was not disagreeable. In general, when it had flesh at TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS. 141 will, it only made one meal a day. I found by weighing what it ate, that thirty ounces of flesh served it one day with another. This species of eagle is provided with a very large craw, which of course is the first receptacle of food, and when it was at liberty to eat its fill, this was generally distended to a larger size than that of a turkey-cock full of grain ; it gradually contracts in proportion as the flesh passes into the stomach, just as it happens in common fowls. " It is said by several celebrated naturalists and physiologists, that the eagle when unable to procure flesh will feed upon bread. To ascertain this point I made various experiments. I first set before the bird both flesh and wheaten bread ; and finding that it ran towards the flesh without even casting a look upon the bread, I set only the latter before it, and this after a day's fast, when it must have been pressed by hunger. When I had prolonged the fast to the fourth day, the bird ran towards me as I opened the door of the apartment, but with no other view than to ask food. I offered it a piece of bread, but in vain ; for, without even touching it, it returned to the place where it stood before my coining in. I might have carried the trial still further, but was afraid of the animal sinking under it. I therefore abandoned this mode of experiment, and concealed the bread in some flesh, as I had done in my experiment with the falcon, and had recourse to the same expedient, when- ever I was desirous that my eagle should take tubes and other substances. For though this ferocious bird was exceedingly gentle towards me, who was his feeder, yet it might have been hazardous to irritate him, and that would have been unavoidable if I had opened the beak and thrust bread down the throat by force. The first portion of bread which the eagle swallowed concealed by flesh, amounted to half an ounce. Indigestible bodies, such as feathers, used o3 142 FACULTIES OF BIRDS, to be thrown up eighteen, twenty, or at most twenty- four hours after they were received into the stomach. But the bread was not, and the same thing took place when the quantity of bread was increased to six ounces. My last experiment upon bread was to substitute the crust instead of the crumb ; but the result was just the same ; and notwithstanding the eagle had shown so little appetite for this kind of food, its health did not appear to suffer. I was obliged to conclude, that this species of vegetable is digested, and converted into real nutriment, as well as animal matters. I could not therefore refuse to accede to the opinion of those who affirm that eagles, when much pressed by hunger, will feed upon bread, though mine would not touch it. " I had before observed that the eagle devours the smaller bones of dogs and cats along with the flesh. When I gave that in my possession a bird, it would also swallow all the bones, except those of the extre- mities ; and as they were not thrown up, there was good reason for believing that they were digested ; a circumstance that exactly agrees with my observations on falcons and various other birds. But greater cer- tainty being desirable, two pieces of the rib of a small dog, each about two inches long, w ; ere tied together, and two thigh-bones of a cock ; this packet was re- tained twenty-three hours, but the bones were very much altered during that time. The two pieces of rib were reduced to the thinness of a membrane ; the least violence was sufficient to break them ; they were totally inelastic, and had lost all their marrow. The two thigh-bones now resembled tubes of parch- ment ; they were easily compressible, and when left to themselves recovered their shape, and after being- bent they would become straight again. Upon one of the bones thus wasted and altered, there was a very singular appearance: about one-fifth was still TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS. ]43 bony, but tender, yielding to the touch, and much attenuated. It is therefore apparent that the juices of the stomach are capable of dissolving bone, and that in a short space. I was unwilling to throw aside these bones thus reduced almost to nothing, and therefore, tying them up in a bundle, I gave them again to the eagle, in order to see whether they would be entirely dissolved, or, like a caput mortuum, retain their membranous appearance ; but, being appre- hensive that this could not be so well ascertained if they were naked in the stomach, I enclosed them in a tube. It was retained thirteen hours, and upon examination was entirely empty ; it was therefore reasonable to infer that the gastric fluid had now completed the solution. The readiness with which these bones, of a texture by no means tender, were digested, led me to suppose that the hardest would not resist the action of the gastric liquor. To deter- mine this, I began by giving the eagle a sphere of bone, worked at the lathe out of an ox's thigh-bone, of the same diameter as that which had been used for the falcon, and taken from the same individual. Upon that occasion I observed that the falcon did not dissolve it during the long space of thirty-five days and seven hours. In the present case it was every day cast up and immediately returned, and in twenty- five days and nine hours it was completely digested. The eagle is then capable not only of digesting the hardest bones, but of digesting them in a shorter space than some other birds of prey*." In a wild state, as in confinement, it is probable that eagles always prefer living prey to carrion, though they may, when pressed by hunger, frequently have re- course to such fare. It is in this way we must ac- count for what is related of these birds by eastern travellers, supposing them to be correct in the species; * Dissertations, i. 187. 144 FACULTIES OF BIRDS, for it is not unusual for travellers, unacquainted with natural history, to confound vultures and other large birds with eagles. From eagles being observed to feed chiefly on ani- mals killed by themselves, while other carnivorous birds were content with carrion, the ancient natural- ists drew distinctions between the species, founded on this circumstance. According to Aristotle, some of these rapacious birds will not attack a pigeon while it is sitting, and the pigeon is so well aware of this, that it will not leave its perch on the appearance of a bird of this sort, but will take wing when another species comes in sight*. Pliny takes the same view with more minuteness ; when speaking of birds of prey he says, they " are divided into sundry and distinct kinds, by their greedinesse, more or lesse, and their manner in chase and preying; for some there be that never seise on a fowle but upon the ground : others againe never assaile any birds, but when they spy them flying about some tree. There be also, that take a bird perching and sitting on high ; and ye shall have them that overtake them as they fly in the wide and open aire. The doves therefore and pigeons, knowing the danger of flying aloft, so soon as they espy them, either light upon the ground and settle, or else fly neere the earth, and thus help themselves by taking a contrary course to the hawks' nature, to avoid their talons f." Proceeding still upon the same view, Albertus Magnus divides rapacious birds into noble, ignoble, and mixed }; a division which has been partially adhered to by most subsequent authors, even down to the most recently proposed classifica- tions . " Birds,'' says Mr. Knapp, "which we denominate rapacious, such as falcons, hawks, owls, live upon * De Anim. ix. 24. f Holland's Plinie, i. 274. J De Anim. xxiii. 5, de Falcone. Zool. Journ. i. 313, TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS. 145 animal food, which they capture, kill, and devour; abstaining, unless stimulated by necessity, from crea- tures they may find dead." " The raven and the crow likewise eat animal food, but it is generally such as has been killed by violence or ceased to exist, only in cases of want killing it for themselves. The crow, in the spring, when food is difficult of attainment, will kill young pigeons ; and the magpie, having young ones, captures the new hatches of our domestic poultry*." Now although both the structure of the birds, and their more usual habits, certainly accord in some measure with the original remark of Aristotle, we must take the whole with considerable limitation, if we keep to facts proved by observation. The circumstance of eagles, while in confinement, pre- ferring living prey to carrion, proved by every one who has kept the birds, seems to us of much less force than the facts derived from observing the birds in a wild state. " Notwithstanding/' says M. Vaillant, " all which poets and historians and the authors who have copied them have written, I have verified the observation so frequently, as authorizes me to maintain and repeat it to be false, that eagles, even when pressed by hunger, never pounce upon carrion f." Wilson is no less explicit. " Were we disposed," he says, " after the manner of some, to substitute for plain matter of fact all the narratives, conjectures, and fanciful theories of tra- vellers, voyagers, compilers, &c. relative to the history of the eagle, the volumes of these writers, from Aris- totle down to his admirer the Count de Buffon, would furnish abundant materials for this purpose. But the author of the present work feels no ambition * Journ. of a Naturalist, p. 244, 3d edit. f Oiseaux d'Afrique, i. 8. 146 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. to excite surprise and astonishment at the expense of truth, or to attempt to elevate and embellish his subject beyond the plain realities of nature. On this account, he cannot assent to the assertion, however eloquently made, in the celebrated parallel drawn by the French naturalists between the lion and the eagle, namely, that the eagle like the lion ' disdains the pos- session of that property which is not the fruit of his own industry, and rejects with contempt the prey which is not procured by his own exertions ;' since the very reverse of this is the case in the conduct of the bald and the sea-eagle, who, during the summer months, are the constant robbers or plunderers of the osprey or fish-hawk, by whose industry alone both are usually fed. Nor that, ' though famished for want of prey, he disdains to feed on carrion,' since we have ourselves seen the bald eagle, while seated on the dead carcass of a horse, keep a whole flock of vultures at a respectful distance, until he had fully sated his own appetite*." There can be no question, moreover, respecting the general accuracy of Aristotle's remark, that some birds of prey prefer striking their prey on the wing, others to pounce upon birds at roost or other animals on the ground, circumstances which give some colour to the distinctions of noble and ignoble. M. Belon tells us that it is a common amusement with the Turks at Constantinople to toss from the tops of the houses pieces of bullock's lungs, which were pounced upon with such velocity and unerring aim by kites that they rarely fell to the ground f. The hen harrier, or ring-tail hawk (Circus pygar- gus, FLEMING), appears to have similar manners to the falcons observed by M. Belon. Bingley tells us * Amer. Ornithol. vii. 1 7. t Observ. dans ses Voy. en Orient. 4to. 1553. TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS. 147 that a gentleman, who was shooting in Hampshire, sprung- a pheasant, shot at it, arid notwithstanding the report of his fowling-piece, it was pursued by a hen harrier, but escaped into a covert. He afterwards sprung and missed several more, the hawk con- tinuing to hover round all the while he was beating the field, as if well aware of the game which lurked in the stubble. It might be, that the bird had been rendered daring and bold by hunger, or perhaps it might not be able to strike the game nor pounce on it when on the ground where a pheasant might make a stout resistance. At all events, it is not likely so large a bird could escape the piercing eye of the hawk, which was apparently on express look out for prey. " Hence," adds the author, " that propensity in game to cowering and squatting till they are almost trodden on, which doubtless was intended by Providence as a mode of security, though it has long been rendered; destructive by the invention of nets and guns *." The fearless courage of birds of prey, however, impels them to attack game of considerable size. From the stomach of an American sparrow-hawk (Falco sparverius) Wilson took a considerable part of the carcass of a migratory thrush (Turdus migra- torius), including the unbroken feet and claws, though this thrush is within half an inch as long as the hawk 'f'. But this is nothing to the smaller falcons even attacking eagles. The falcon geutil, as it was formerly termed, the gos-hawk (Aslur palumbarius, BECHSTEIN) of modern writers, was reputed one of the most courageous, in the days of falconry, when it was flown at the largest game. " Were there not," says Dr. Russell, " several gentlemen now in England to bear witness to the fact, I should hardly venture to assert that with this * Anira. Biogr. ii. 207. f A nier Ornith. iv, 58 148 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. bird, which is about the size of a pigeon, the inha- bitants sometimes take large eagles. This hawk, in former times, was taught to seize the eagle under the pinion, and thus depriving him of the use of one wing, both birds fell to the ground together; but I am informed that the present mode is to teach the hawk to fix on the back, between the wings, which has the same effect, only that the bird tumbling down more slowly, the falconer has more time to come to his hawk's assistance. But in either case, if he be not very expeditious, the falcon is in- evitably destroyed. I never saw the shaheen fly at eagles, that sport having been disused before my time, but I have often seen him take herons and storks. The hawk, when thrown off, flies for some time in a horizontal line, not six feet from the ground, then mounting perpendicularly, with astonishing swift- ness, he seizes his prey under the wing, and both together come tumbling to the ground. If the fal- coner, however, be not expeditious, the game soon disengages itself and escapes*." The common buzzard (Butco vulgaris, FLEMING), which is certainly not the bravest of the rapacious birds, and never, according to Montagu, pursues its prey on the wing, has been known to exhibit no little daring. One which M. Fontaine kept tame, when hovering early in the morning over the skirts of the forest of Belesme, dared to attack a fox, and the keeper seeing him on the shoulders of the fox, fired two shots at him : the fox was killed, and the buzzard had his wing broken f. Even eagles are not always so courageous as this, as appears from the following anecdote by M. Vaillant. " I was once," he says, " witness to a combat which took place in the environs of Paris, * Nat. Hist of Aleppo. f Buifon, Oiseaux, Art. La, Buse. t Buzzard {Buteo vulgaris), TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS, 140 between ten missel-thrushes and a white-tailed eagle (Haliatus albicilla, SAVIGNY), in which the latter was completely beaten, and had squatted down in a shed, where he had sought refuge. Attracted by the reiterated cries and continued agitation of the thrushes, whose manoeuvring announced something extraordinary, I went to the spot, and was surprised to discover them engaged with an eagle. Being in what were called the royal preserves, I was not pro- vided with arms, but unwilling to resist so fine an opportunity of procuring a bird which would be a valuable acquisition to my collection, I ran to my house at Asnieres, a village not far from the spot, and returned with a pistol loaded with a large ball, as my fowling-piece would have too much exposed me. I regained the plain ; I saw the eagle still fighting with the missel-thrushes, who had not at all given way ; and, in defiance of watchful and in- flexible keepers, and the atrocious game-laws, with a heart palpitating between joy and apprehension, I approached within ten paces of the dastardly bird, and nicely adjusting my pistol, killed him in a mo- ment. Immediately burying my weapon, and con- cealing the eagle among some brambles, I quitted the place, looking eagerly around me with no little apprehension, as every man whom I saw moving about the plain seemed to me to wear a keeper's uniform ; but this time the vigilance of the keepers was at fault; there was no cause for alarm. I bore off my prize, and gained my dwelling without de- tection, where, proud of my acquisition, I invited all my friends to be witnesses of my triumph*." In owls the gullet is larger than in eagles, but the gizzard is similar in form, and the digastric muscle is weak. The Abbe Spallanzani tried similar experi- ments upon owls to those upon eagles, which we * Oiseaux d'Afrique, vol. iii. 150 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. have already given. " Observing," he says, " that when they were hungry and opened their beaks very wide, if I dropped a pea, French bean, or cherry into it, they swallowed it with as much avidity as if it had been the pleasantest kind of food, I was desirous of seeing whether the stomach would digest vegetable substances. With this view I enclosed several of the seeds just enumerated in some tubes, and forced the bird to swallow them, but to no purpose ; for though the liquor swelled the seeds, and perhaps altered the colour, they underwent no diminution of bulk. They were cast up undigested in a day or two ; a circumstance which sufficiently shows that such kind of food, notwithstanding they appear to relish it, is ill adapted to their gastric juices. The greedi- ness with which they swallow such substances can arise only from that blind appetite in consequence of which many birds take whatever is offered them. " Being satisfied with these experiments on noc- turnal birds of prey, I turned my attention to some of the diurnal ones. My first subject was a falcon, given me by my illustrious friend the Abbe Corti. 1 soon found that I could not handle this bird so familiarly as those which I have had occasion to mention hitherto. The strong beak and long sharp talons would not easily permit me to open the mouth by force, but I contrived a method of introducing tubes into the stomach without the bird being aware, by cutting some flesh in pieces, making holes in them, and in these concealing the tubes. When the falcon was hungry he ran eagerly to the pieces of flesh, and swallowed them whole. For the fraud to succeed it was necessary that the tubes should be quite covered with flesh, for if any part of them was bare, the falcon would put them under his talons, and tear the flesh away with his beak, and swallow it, leaving the tube. TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS. 151 " My first experiment was made with a view to ascertain whether it was capable of digesting- bone, independently of the action of the stomach. This result was successful ; but I have before said so much on the subject of the digestion of bone, that I should omit relating the present instance particularly, but for a new and important phenomenon, which renders the detail necessary. The bone consisted of little splinters of an ox's thigh-bone; they were very hard and compact, and of various sizes, from a grain of wheat to a bean ; they weighed together sixty-seven grains. I put them into two close tubes, in which they were rather closely crammed. To prevent their falling out of the tubes when they began to be dis- solved, and consequently to get loose from each other, I put the tubes in a linen bag, a precaution which I had before employed, and continued to employ occasionally in future. In twenty-four hours the bones had shifted their respective places, and rattled in the tubes, a circumstance that showed the bulk to be diminished. I examined them again after they had been two days in the stomach. The pieces of the size of grains of wheat were all destroyed, which were now no larger than millet. Three of the splinters were at first as big as beans, but now reduced to the size of maize. Those of an intermediate size were diminished in proportion. During the whole time they all continued hard. At the third examination, after fifty-seven hours' longer continuance in the stomach, the three large pieces only were left, and they were now no larger than millet ; when I struck them with a hammer, I found that they retained their original hardness. The gastric liquor, therefore, of the falcon does not, like that of owls and many other animals, insinuate itself into the substance of the bone, but acts on the surface only. The phenomenon, I think, may be thus explained : p 3 152 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. conceive a bone to be composed like wood, or, taking a more familiar instance, like an onion, of a great number of strata. The strata of the onion are of considerable thickness, but we must imagine that in bone they are exceedingly thin. The gastric fluid of owls or other animals will first dissolve the upper stratum, but while it is doing this it will penetrate and soften the contiguous strata, without dissolving them. Hence the tenderness of bone that has lain in the stomachs of animals. On the contrary, we must suppose that the gastric liquor of the falcon has no power of penetrating the internal strata, but that its action is limited to the surface. According to this supposition the bone will be digested without having the internal parts softened ; and thus stratum after stratum will be taken away, just as it would happen if we had a menstruum capable of dissolving only the superficial layer of an onion without acting upon the others*.'' According to Sir Everard Home, the carrrion crow (Corvus Corone) has the cavity of the gizzard of an oval form, with a thick wrinkled lining and a weak digastric muscle. From living chiefly upon carrion, its sagacity appears to be rendered acute in discovering not only a dead carcass, but animals which are weak and sickly. When a crow therefore is seen lingering about alone in any unusual place, it may be suspected that a sheep or other animal is somewhere near, and likely to die. When the animal becomes worse, the crow approaches nearer, and as soon as it is unable to move, pecks out its eyes, and sheep are often found still alive with their eyes thus pecked outf. " The crow," says Colonel Montagu, " will also pursue birds on the wing, when pressed by hunger. We once saw this bird in pursuit of a pigeon, at which it made several pounces like a hawk ; but the pigeon escaped * Dissertations, i. 162. t Comp. Anat. i. 275. TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS, 153 by flying in at the door of a house. We have also seen it strike a pigeon dead from the top of a barn. It is a great destroyer of young game and poultry*." The crow feeds, however, occasionally on grain : " I have," says Sir Everard Home, " found grain in its gizzard, but it is not the kind of food of which it is most fond. The crow is by many accused of destroying the grass, by pulling it up by the roots. This is an error arising out of the following very curious circumstance. In searching for grubs which are concealed in the earth, and supported by eating the roots of the grass, the crow pulls at the blade of grass with its bill, and when the grass comes up, the bird knows that there are under it insects which have destroyed its roots, and in this way detects them ; but if the blade of grass is firm, it goes to another part of the ground. In a field where grubs are very abundant, the crows scatter the grass every where, so as to give the appearance of having rooted it up, while they have only exposed the depredations of the insects by which the roots had been destroyed. As the rook lives occasionally upon grain, it was natural to suppose there would be some characteristic dis- tinction between the digestive organs of that bird and those of the crow, whose food is chiefly animal, but upon the most accurate examination no difference whatever can be detected except the cuticular lining being thinner. This leads me to conclude that although the rook does eat vegetable substances, the principle upon which the gizzard is formed is such as to fit it more particularly for the digestion of insects. The gizzard of the raven is like that of the crow. " There are many other birds under similar cir- cumstances ; they eat and digest vegetable food very readily, but when the choice is given them prefer that of the animal kind ; and from the weakness of the * Ornith. Diet. p. 11,3, 2d edit, 154 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. digastric muscle, the gizzard is evidently not to be classed with those of the granivorous birds. The bustard is of this kind ; its gizzard is not unlike that of the raven. It has a thick cuticular lining, and a weak digastric muscle, but the gastric glands are uncommonly large ; so as to have attracted the attention of M. Perrault, who has given an account of their structure, saying, that they are conical tubes terminating in a point at one end, and open at the other, and are larger than in any other bird except the ostrich, whose solvent glands he appears not to have examined. " As I have not had an opportunity of examining these glands in the bustard, I must rest this account upon the structure of the glands upon M. Perrault's authority, as stated in the work on Comparative Anatomy, published under the patronage of Louis XIV. in 1676. " Understanding that the bustard in India is a favourite bird for the table, and that all bustards are there considered to be granivorous birds, I was unable to reconcile this circumstance with the structure of its digestive organs ; but this difficulty is solved by the following account of the mode of feeding of this bird, which is taken from Mr. Hunter's notes upon this subject, who kept a cock-bustard a whole summer in his garden. It died in November apparently from the cold of the winter. He killed mice and sparrows with his bill by pinching their heads, and then swallowed them whole, even when of considerable size. It was easy to observe a large mouse going down his throat making a moving tumour till it came to the turn of the neck : it then moved backwards, and although out of sight, yet its progress was traced by the feathers between the shoulders separating, and closing again as soon as it passed into the gizzard. It was fond of worms, and while the gardener was The Bustard (Otiitarda). v/J The Adjutant (Cicunia argala). TASTE OP CARNIVOROUS B[RDS. 155 -, stood by him arid looked out for them. It ate the buds of flowers, and particularly of roses ; also the substance of cucumbers, but not the outside. From these observations the bustard is evidently fitted more particularly to live on animal food*." One of the most voracious of carnivorous birds is the gigantic crane, or, as it is called in India, the adjutant (Ciconia argala, TEMMINCK). It does not, however, rank in systematic arrangements as a bird of prey any more than the bustard, though we have just seen that the latter lives chiefly on animal food. The structure of the stomach in the adjutant corresponds with this similarity in habit, though the solvent glands are differently formed from those of yfhe fctomach of the Adjutant, opened to show its internal surface, and the gastric glands arranged in two oval groups * Comparative Anatomy, i. 277. 156 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. any other bird. These glands are not placed round the upper portion of stomach, but form two circular figures, about one inch and a half in diameter on the fore and back part of it, each gland being composed of five or six cells, and these opening into one common pipe. The gizzard and digastric muscle are nearly of the same strength with that of the craw, and the former is lined with a similar horny cuticle*. These birds are not only capable of digesting bones, as Spallanzani proved eagles and owls to be, but they seem to be fond of them, swallowing every bone which they can get down their gullet, whence they are denominated bone-eaters. It has been stated by Sir Everard Home that there was found in the craw and stomach of one of these birds a land tor- toise, ten inches long, and a large male black cat, entire f. Mr. Smeathman, to whom we are indebted for several very interesting details in natural history, has given an account of this bird, which we think will furnish a good illustration of our subject. The adjutants, he tells us, " are met with in companies ; and when seen at a distance, near the mouths of rivers, coming towards an observer, which they often do with their wings extended, may well be taken for canoes upon the surface of a smooth sea ; when on the sand-banks, for men and women picking up shell-fish or other things on the beach. One of these, a young bird about five feet high, was brought up tame, and presented to the chief of the Bananas, where Mr. Smeathman lived ; and being accustomed to be fed in the great hall, soon became familiar, duly attending that place at dinner-time, placing itself behind its master's chair frequently before the guests entered. The servants were obliged to watch * Sir E. Home, Comp. Anat. i. 278. t Phil, Trans, for 1813, p. 77, TASTE OF CARNIVOROUS BIRDS. 157 narrowly, and to defend the provisions with switches ; but, notwithstanding, it would frequently seize some- thing or other, and once purloined a whole boiled fowl, which it swallowed in an instant. Its courage is not equal to its voracity, for a child of eight or ten years old soon puts it to flight with a switch, though at first it seems to stand on its defence, by threat- ening, with its enormous bill widely extended, and roaring with a loud voice like a bear or tiger. It is an enemy to small quadrupeds, as well as birds and reptiles, and slily destroys fowls or chickens, though it dares not attack a hen openly with her young. Every thing is swallowed whole ; and so accommo- dating is its throat, that not only an animal as big as a cat is gulped down, but a shin of beef broken asunder serves it but for two morsels. It is known to swallow a leg of mutton of five or six pounds, a hare, a small fox, &c. After a time the bones are rejected from the stomach, which seems to be volun- tary, for it has been known that an ounce or two of emetic tartar given to one of these birds produced no effect*." * Latham, Gen. Hist, of Birds, ix, 40-1, 158 FACULTIES OF BIRDS, CHAPTER VII. TASTE OF PISCIVOROUS BIRDS. THE digestible properties of fish are not greatly dif- ferent from those of tiesh, and accordingly we find that the digestive organs of birds which feed upon fish are very similar to those of birds purely carniv- orous. In the gannet or solan-goose (Sula alba, MEYER), for example, the solvent glands are very numerous, and placed round the cavity of the gizzard in the form of a very broad belt, extending nearly as low as the outlet of the stomach, and forming, as in the hawk, four distinct portions, though the interstices are less distinct. The digastric muscle is feeble, and the cavity is of an oval form, the outlet going off The gizz&rd of the Solan Goose, opened to show the gastric glands. TASTE OF PISCIVOROUS BIRDS. 159 about the middle of the right side*. The inner surface of the gizzard also is soft, smooth, and spongy, particularly that portion of it which covers the gastric glands, secreting a mucus not found elsewhere. This was ascertained upon examining the organs of a cormorant (Carbo cormoranus, MEYER) suspected of having been poisoned. In this bird, it is worth remarking, the solvent glands being in close contact form a compact mass, and are placed within the dilated portion of the gizzard ; though they do riot extend all round, but form two circular portions, one on the fore and another on the hind part of the surface, for about half the length of the cavity. In the cormorant just mentioned, supposed to have been poisoned, it was found that the bird had died in consequence of a newt (Triton palustris, LAURENTI) having been put into its mouth with the hind feet fore- most, by the person who fed it ; the newt spreading its legs, could neither be forced down into the gizzard, nor thrown up by the mouth : the irritated gullet (cesophagus) became inflamed, and the inflammation extended along the inner membrane of the gizzard, the contents of which were enveloped in a thick mucus : the inner membrane was generally very vas- cular ; but the two circular portions, where the gastric glands are situated, were coated over with a thick and almost solid mucus, which could not be com- pletely removed, so firmly did it adhere. This ap- pearance was so very extraordinary, and the orifices of the gastric glands were so completely choked with mucus, that it was difficult to believe the mucus had not been secreted by the gastric glands and poured out by their excretory ducts. This, however, was ascertained not to be the case, by cutting off the ori- fices and the membrane through which they open, and finding the ducts themselves empty. These cir- * Sir E. Home, Comp. Anat. i. 279. Q3 160 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. cum stances explain a disease to which that bird is liable, and which is not uncommon to other birds ; this is, having ascarides in the gizzard ; and these are con- fined to those particular spots. The worms irritate the membrane, and then feed upon the secretion produced by such irritation. This is analogous to the disease in sheep called the rot ; the flukes in the biliary ducts which constitute that disease irritate those ducts, and feed upon the bile which is secreted in increased quantity, in consequence of the disturbed state in which the ducts are constantly kept*. The cormorant is a great destroyer of fish, and so keenly does it engage in the sport, that advantage has been taken of the circumstance to train it for fishing, in the manner hawks are trained for fowling, a tight collar being put round the throat to prevent the swallowing of the prey. A bird of this species, kept by Colonel Montagu, was extremely docile, of a grateful disposition, and by no means of a savage or vindictive spirit. He received it by coach after it had been four and twenty hours on the road ; yet though it must have been hungry, it rejected every sort of food he could offer to it, even raw flesh ; but as he could not procure fish at the time, he was compelled to cram it with raw flesh, which it swallowed with evident reluctance, though it did not attempt to strike him with its formidable beak. After seeing it fed he withdrew to the library, but was surprised in a few minutes to see the stranger walk boldly into the room, and join him at the fireside with the utmost familiarity, where it continued dressing its feathers till it was removed to the aquatic menagerie. It became restless and agitated at the sight of water, and when set at liberty plunged and dived without intermission for a considerable time, without capturing or even discovering a single fish ; and apparently * Sir E. Home, Comp. Anat. i. 282. TASTE OF PISCIVOROUS BIRDS. 161 convinced that there were none to be found, it made no farther attempt for three days. 44 The dexterity, 5 ' continues Colonel Montagu, " with which this bird seizes its prey is incredible. Knowing* its own powers, if a fish is thrown into the water at a distance, it will dive immediately, pursuing its course under water, in a direct line towards the spot, never failing to take the fish, and that frequently before it falls to the bottom. The quantity it will swallow at a meal is astonishing; three or four pounds twice a day are readily devoured, the diges- tion being excessively rapid. If by accident a large fish sticks in the gullet, it has the power of inflating that part to its utmost, and while in that state the head and neck are violently shaken, in order to pro- mote its passage. This is a property we never observed in any other bird, but it is probably common to the rest of the tribe, or such as are destitute of nasal apertures. That all birds have a communica- tion between their lungs and the cavity of their body surrounding the viscera, more or less, is well known ; but as there is no passage into the gullet (oesophagus) but by the mouth, to effect this inflation a violent compression of the body becomes necessary, at the same time the bill is closed, and the air is forced back into the mouth and pressed into the gullet. It is observable that, in the act of fishing, this bird always carries its head under water, in order that it may discover its prey at a greater distance, and with more certainty than could be effected by keeping its eyes above the surface, which are agitated by the air, and rendered unfit for visional purposes. If the fish is of the flat kind it will turn it in the bill, so as to reverse its natural position, and by this means only could such be got within the bill ; if it succeeds in. capturing an eel, which is its favourite food, in an unfavourable position for gorging, it will throw the fish up to a distance, dexterously catching it in a 162 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. more favourable one as it descends. In thus turning the fish, the delatable skin under the bill is of great use, but is by no means deserving of the appellation of a pouch, not being capable of more distension than any other part of the gullet (oesophagus) ; nor can it be used as a reservoir for provisions, either for its own use or for the use of its young, as asserted by some authors. It lives in perfect harmony with the wild swan, goose, various sort of ducks and other birds, but to a gull with a piece of fish it will instantly give chase: in this it seemed actuated by a desire to pos- sess the fish, for if the gull has time to swallow it, no resentment was offered. Apparently the sight of the fish created a desire of possession, which ceased when it had disappeared*. 5 ' We find the following story given by the Dutch naturalist, Jonston, from Odoric. " In a certaine city," says he, "scituate by the great river in the East, we went to see our host fish. I saw in his little ships, cormorants tied upon a perch, and he had tied their throat with a string, that they should not swallow the fish they took. In every bark they set three great panniers, one in the middle, and at each end one ; then they let loose their cormorants, who presently caught abundance of fish, which they put into the panniers, so that in a short time they filled them all. Then mine host took off the straps from their necks, and let them fish for themselves : when they were full, they came back to their pearches arid were tied up again t." Scaliger says that a similar mode of fishing was practised at Venice J. In consequence of the pelican (Pelecanus onocro- talus, ALDROVAND) being furnished with a peculiar organ for storing up its prey, it would seem to be still better adapted than the cormorant for being * Ornith. Diet. p. 102, 2d edit. f History of Wonderful Things, p. 185, fol. Loudon, 1657. J Exereitat, xxxviii. 3. The .feiitan {felecanus onucfotatua). TASTE OF PISCIVOROUS BIRDS. 163 trained to fish, and we are accordingly informed by M. Pirard that it has been actually employed in this manner by the Chinese*. Labat also tells us that the Indians trained a pelican, which they despatched in the morning after having stained it red, and that it returned in the evening with its bag full of fish which it was made to disgorge (. The sac or bag of the pelican is an elastic flesh- coloured membrane, which hangs from the lower edges of the under mandible, reaching the whole length of the bill to the neck, said to be capacious enough to hold about four gallons of water. The - bird has the power of contracting the bag by wrinkling it up under the mandible, so that it is scarcely visible ; but after a successful fishing, it is incredible to what extent it is frequently distended. It preys chiefly upon the larger fish, with which it fills its capacious pouch in order to digest them at leisure; and Sir Joseph Banks remarked, that one which he observed showed considerable dexterity in tossing about the fish stored up in its bag till it lay in the proper position to be swallowed J. Dr. Paley has made this singular bag in the pelican the basis of some excellent remarks on the theory that the organs of animals have been formed not by the Creator, but by their own efforts and habits, which we think it may be useful to quote. The bag of the pelican, say the theorists, is the result, " not of the habit or effort of a single pelican, or of a single race of pelicans, but of a habit perpetuated through a long series of generations. The pelican soon found the conveniency of reserving in its mouth, when its appetite was glutted, the remainder of its prey, which is fish. The fulness produced by this attempt, of * Voyage de Pirard, i. 376. f Quoted by Buftbn, Oiseaux, Art. Le Pelecan* I Sir E, Home, Comp.Anat, i. 306, 164 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 'course, stretched the skin which lies between the under chops, as being 1 the most yielding part of the mouth. Every distension increased the cavity. The original bird, and many generations which succeeded him, might find difficulty enough in making the pouch answer this purpose ; but future pelicans, entering upon life with a pouch derived from their progenitors, of considerable capacity, would more readily accelerate its advance to perfection, by fre- quently pressing 1 down the sac with the weight of fish which it might now be made to contain. "These, or of this kind, are the analogies relied upon. Now, in the first place, the instances them- selves are unauthenticated by testimony, and, in theory, to say the least of them, open to great objections. The instance of the pelican, which ap- pears to me as plausible as any that can be produced, has this against it, that it is a singularity restricted to the species; whereas, if it had its commencement in the cause and manner which have been assigned, the like comportation might be expected to take place in other birds which fed upon fish. How comes it to pass that the pelican alone was the inventress, and her de- scendants the only inheritors of this curious resource ? " Upon the whole, after all the schemes and struggles of a reluctant philosophy, the necessary resort is to a Deity. The marks of design are too strong to be gotten over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person is GOD*." The great stretch of wing in the pelican, extending- to eleven or twelve feet, and consequently double that of the swan or the eagle, enables it to support itself for a length of time in the air, where it balances itself with great steadiness, and only changes its place to dart directly downwards on its prey, which rarely * Natural Theology, p. 441, 14th edit. TASTE OF PISCIVOROUS BIRDS. 165 escapes ; for the violence of the dash, and its wide- spread wings, by striking and covering the surface of the water, make it boil and whirl, and at the same time stun the fish, and deprive it of the power of escape *. According to Nieremberg these birds spend in fishing the hours of the morning and evening*, when the finny tribe are most in motion, and choose the places where they are most plentiful ; and it is not a little amusing, he adds, to behold them sweeping the water, rising a few fathoms above it, falling with their neck extended and their sac half full, then ascending with effort to drop again, and continuing this exertion till the sac is quite filled t- The white-headed eagle (Haliaetus leucocephalus, SAVIGNY), as described by Wilson, seems to be the prince of fishing birds. " Elevated," he says, " on the high dead limb of some gigantic tree that com- mands a wide view of the neighbouring shore and ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that pursue their busy avocations below ; the snow-white gulls slowly winnowing the air ; the busy sandpipers (Tringce) coursing along the sands ; trains of ducks streaming over the surface ; silent and watchful cranes, intent and wading ; clamorous crows, and all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of nature. High over all these hovers one whose actions instantly arrests all his attention. By his wide curvature of wing, and sudden suspension in air, he knows him to be the fish-hawk (Pandion haliaetus, SAVIGNY), settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kindles at the sight, and balancing himself with half opened wings on the branch, he watches the result. * Petr. Martyr, Nov. Orb. Decad, i, 6; apud Montbeillard, Oiseaux. t Hist, Nat. x, 223. 1 166 FACULTIES OF BIRDS, Down, rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the distant object of his attention, the roar of its wings reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making the surges foam around. At this moment the eager looks of the eagle are all ardour; and, levelling his neck for flight, he sees the fish-hawk once more emerge, struggling with his prey, and mounting in the air with screams of exultation. These are the signal for our hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives chase,, soon gains on the fish-hawk, each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, displaying in the rencontres the most elegant and sublime aerial evolutions. The unencumbered eagle rapidly advances, and is just on the point of reaching his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, probably of despair and honest execration, the latter drops his fish ; the eagle, poising himself for a moment, as if to take a more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten booty silently away to the woods." Those birds of the eagle kind which fish on their own account (all of them rob when they can) pursue nearly the same method of dashing from a height upon their prey in the water ; the blagre (Hatiaetus blagrus, SAVIGNY), for example, of Africa, and the vociferous eagle (Haliaetus vocifer) called the bald buzzard in M. Vaillant's Travels. The latter usually establishes what may be justly called a fishery at the mouth of some considerable river, over \vhich it hovers high in the air till it perceives a fish, when it dashes down striking the water and plunging its whole body beneath the surface in order to secure its prey, usually a fish of considerable size, which it carries to some neighbouring rock or the trunk of some branchless tree*. So constantly does it keep to the same eating station, that M. Vaillant procured a * Oiseaux d'Afrique, i, ] 8. TASTE OF PISCIVOROUS BIRDS. 167 pair of these birds from discovering such a station. " While walking 1 ," he says, " along- the bank opposite to that on which my camp stood, I perceived a number of heads, fragments of large fishes, and the bones and remains of small antelopes, strewed on the ground, near the rotten trunk of an old tree. I immediately concluded that this must be the place where a pair of bald buzzards had established their fishery, and it was not long before I saw them sailing in the air at a great height." He found, however, they were too quick-sighted to come to their station while he remained concealed only in the bushes, and it was riot till he had a hole dug in the ground, over night, where he concealed himself for two days suc- cessively, that he succeeded in shooting the birds*. The osprey (Pandion haliaetus, SAVIGNY) cannot, according to Montagu, either dive or swim, and consequently can only take such fish as swim near the surface. On one occasion he observed an osprey looking out for prey on the river Avon. At last, he saw its attention arrested, and like the kestril (Falco tinnunculus) 3 in search of mice, it became stationary, as if examining what had attracted its notice. After a pause of some time, it descended to within about fifty yards of the surface of the water, and there continued hovering for another short interval, when it precipitated itself into the water with such great celerity as to be nearly immersed. In three or four seconds the bird rose without any apparent difficulty, carried off a trout of moderate size, and, instead of alighting to regale upon its prey, soared to a prodigious height and did not descend within his viewt- Pliny gives a similar description, evidently applicable to the same bird, which he says "hath the quickest and clearest eye of all others, soaring and mounting on high: when she spieth a * Travels, i. 196, 2d edit. t Linnsean Trans. 168 FACULTIES OF BIRDS, fish in the sea, downe she comes with a power, plungeth into the water, and, breaking the force thereof with her brest, quickly she catcheth up the fish and is gone*/' a circumstance which we have frequently witnessed at the kyles of Bute and elsewhere, when we have seen the osprey shoot down like a thunderbolt from the air into the sea upon a fish she had marked for her prey f. The description, however, which Wilson has given of the fishing of the osprey, excels even Pliny's in eloquence, while it equals Montagu's in accuracy. " On leaving his nest," he says, " he usually flies direct till he comes to the sea, then sails round in easy curving lines, turning sometimes in the air as on a pivot, apparently without the least exertion, rarely moving his wings; his legs extended in a straight line behind, and his remarkable strength and curvature of wing distinguishing him from all other hawks. Suddenly he is seen to check his course, as if struck by a particular object, which he seems to survey for a few moments with such steadiness that he appears fixed in the air flapping his wings. This object, however, he abandons and is again seen sailing round as before. Now his attention is again arrested, and he descends with great rapidity ; but ere he reaches the surface, shoots off another course as if ashamed that a second victim had escaped him. He now sails at a short distance above the surface, arid by a zigzag descent, and without seeming to dip his feet in the water, seizes a fish, which, after carrying a short distance, he drops it or probably yields up his prey to the bald eagle, and again ascends, by easy spiral circles, to the higher regions, where he glides about with all the ease and majesty of his species. At once, from the sublime aerial height, he descends like a perpendicular torrent, plunging * Holland's Plinnie, i, 272. f J, R. TASTE OF PISCIVOROUS BIRDS. 169 into the sea with a loud rushing sound, and with the certainty of a rifle. In a few moments he emerges, bearing in his claws his struggling prey, which he always carries head-foremost, and, having risen a few feet above the surface, shakes himself as a water spaniel would do, and directs his heavy and laborious course direct for the land. If the wind blows hard, and his nest be in a quarter from whence he comes, it is amusing to observe with what judgment he beats up to windward ; not in a direct line, but making several successive tacks to gain his purpose*." It would appear from these accounts that the circumstance mentioned by the ancient naturalists of the osprey being sometimes dragged under water and drowned is not improbable. The polypus (Medusa or Sepia) is the animal to which, though " unwar- like and timid," as Scaligerf calls it, this is ascribed. yElian says the polypus holds fast by a rock while it drags the eagle under water J. The heron pursues a very different mode of fishing, and we have often admired the patience with which it will stand knee-deep on the edge of a lake, for hours together, as irnmoveable as if it were inanimate, watching for the chance appearance of a fish or a frog within reach of its formidable bill. Like the spider ambushed in its web, or the ant-lion (Myrme- leoii) in its pitfall, the heron might be judged by a bystander to be indolent and sluggish ; but no sooner does a fish come into view, than its every fibre seems buoyant with animation, and it strikes its victim with electric celerity, rarely missing its aim. We have most commonly seen the heron fishing very early in the morning, but once we observed one on a bright moonlight summer night standing, as we have de- scribed, on the edge of Loch Brown in Ayrshire. As *Amer. Ornith. v. 13. | Exercitat. 231. J Hist. Animal, vii. 11. R3 170 FACULTIES OF BIRDS, the day advances, it usually quits the water to return to its nest, or to pass to some other fishing station, as \ve have never seen an instance of its fishing when the day was advanced*. M. Buffon has given a singularly distorted view of the facts we have just stated, erroneously inferring, as it would appear, the degree of misery which he ascribes to the heron, from the supposition of what he himself would feel in similar circumstances. " It is peculiarly unfortunate," as Dr. Drummond well remarks, " that this sort of comparison is not adopted in the only instances where it could be attended with good, that is, when the animals around us are undergoing pain and deprivation from our own tyranny and oppression. If in these cases we would imagine ourselves in their place, and think of the misery we should experience by such change of situation, it might be a powerful motive for our attempting to mitigate their sufferings. In a state of nature no race of animals is unhappy f." The dexterity with which fishing birds strike their prey, is well exemplified in the common king-fisher (Alcedo Ispidd)^ which, from living on small quick- moving river fish, would starve if it did not far ex- ceed them in acuteness of sight, and rapidity of motion. In several species which feed upon fish and ma- rine insects, the gizzard has the solvent glands placed either within itself, or similarly to those of carnivo- rous birds. It is probable, in the first case, that the digestive fluid requires to be applied to the whole surface of the food, which usually consists of fish or reptiles, swallowed entire. The observations of Mr. Bullock accord with this view. When at the Bass Rock, he saw the gannet (Sula alba, MEYER) fish for herrings, and frequently watched an individual * J. K. t Letters, p, 214. TASTE OF PISCIVOROUS BIRDS. 171 bird swallow a fish, go to its nest, and regurgitate it into the mouth of its young, and in that short time the skin of the fish had quite disappeared. In the second case, as in the sea-mew (Lams canus), and the flamingo, the gizzard has not only a thick lining, but there is a strong digastric muscle, evidently for the purpose of enabling the birds to feed on shell-fish. The gizzard and cardiac cavity of the Pea-mew, opened to show its internal structure. A still more striking construction of the digestive organs is found in the rotch (Mergulus melanoleucus, RAY). The gullet may be said to form almost a continuous tube descending below the portion where the solvent glands are situated, and then rebending upwards again towards the right, and entering a small gizzard furnished with a strong digastric muscle. The extent of the cavity containing the solvent glands, and turn which it takes almost di- rectly upwards, the gizzard being at the highest in- stead of the lowest part, appear to be peculiar to this species. " This mechanism," says Sir Everard Home, 172 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. Stomach of the Rotch, opened to show its internal structure. " makes the obstacles to the food in its passage to the intestines unusually great, and enables the bird to digest both fishes and sea-worms with crustaceous o shells. It appears to be given for the purpose of economising the foo'd in two different ways; one, retaining it longer in the cardiac cavity ; the other, supplying that cavity with a greater quantity of gastric liquor than in other birds. This opinion is further confirmed by the habits of life of this par- ticular species of bird, which spends a portion of the year in the frozen regions of Nova Zembla, where the supplies of nourishment must be both scanty and precarious * * Comp. Anat. i. 284. 173 CHAPTER VIII. TASTE OF INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. FROM the circumstance of humming-birds frequenting ilowers and thrusting their needle-formed bills into the blossoms, as bees do their tongues and butterflies their suckers, it has been hastily concluded by na- turalists, that, like these insects, they feed on honey. But if suc^ :.vt Mv alists had paused for a moment to conside^ the structure of the organs in the humming- bird^ (TrochilidcK) i their conclusions would not pr naps have been so hasty. Wilson found on re- T eated dissection, that the ruby-throat humming-bird frr *~ochilus colubris) had always a quantity of insects in its stomach, either whole or in fragments * ; and other observers of respectability have confirmed the statement f. The most circumstantial account of this point is given by Audubon in his biography of the same bird. "The nectar or honey," he says, " which the hum- ming-birds sip from different flowers, being of itself insufficient to support them, is used more as if to allay their thirst. I have seen many kept in partial confinement, when they were supplied with artificial flowers made for the purpose, in the corollas of which water with honey or sugar dissolved in it was placed. The birds were fed on these substances exclusively, but seldom lived many months, and on being ex- amined after death were found to be extremely ema- ciated. Others, on the contrary, which were supplied * Amer, Ornith, ii, 26, f See Waterton's Wanderings, &c 174 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. twice a day with fresh flowers from the woods or garden, placed in a room with windows merely closed with mosquito gauze-netting, through which minute insects were able to enter, lived twelve months, at the expiration of which their liberty was granted them, the person who kept them having a long voyage to per- form." " This species," continues Audubon,