Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

While the ships of England and America are coursing the oceans in pursuit of guano, I would call the attention of our agriculturists, to a manure of similar origin, and possessing the same properties, that abounds in many places in their own forests; which may be had for the labor of collecting. I allude to the droppings of the wild pigeon. It is well known that these birds live together in floods of myriads according to Autabon, that their sojourn at a place is not limited by the season, but by the supply of food. This great naturalist remarks that he has seen the earth covered with their evacuations like snow to the depth of several inches. The use of the manure is of very ancient origin. During the great famine that prevailed in Samaria at the time of Elisha, [2 Kings vi. 25,] the fourth of a cab of dove’s dung sold for five pieces of silver. It is highly prized in Persia to this day. Many pigeon houses are constructed for the sole purpose of collecting the droppings of the birds. It is there used for manuring melons; the finest in the world are raised in that country. In Belgium it is used as a top-dressing to flax. They pay for it at the rate of five cents for the evacuation of each bird for a year.
The great value of the discharges of birds as a manure, arises from their urine being deposited with their feces. In animals the salts of urine are separated from the kidneys in a solution of water, the secretion passes down and collects in the bladder. In birds, on the contrary, the salts of urine are separated by the kidneys in a solid form with water barely sufficient to convey them through the tube to the commission outlet. Birds have no urinary bladder.