The faculties of birds / [Anon].

  • Rennie, James, 1787-1867
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The faculties of birds / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    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 alburn). The berries of this shrub are eaten early in spring by the missel-thrush (Turclus 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 Rnaresborough, 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. Loudon 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, l Encycl. of Plants, No. 2054, M