Post-Mortem Digestion of Stomach Contents in the Savannah Sparrow

Abstract

Post-mortem digestion of stomach contents in the Savannah Sparrow.--VanKoersveld (Proc.10th Intern.Ornith.Congr.: 592-594, 1951) demonstrated that digestion in Corvidae continues for 20 to 30 minutes after death unless stopped in some manner.He also demonstrated that soft-bodied forms such as earthworms were completely digested within that time and wireworm larvae were nearly gone in the same time.Harder forms were less completely digested in that time.As part of a study of the feeding habits of Savannah Sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis), I compared the stomach contents of $0 sparrows collected by me from 1959 to 1961 with the contents of 47 sparrow stomachs obtained from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, collected from 1877 to 1938.The $0 sparrows were injected immediately after they were killed with 1.0 cc of 10 per cent formalin to stop digestive action.The 47 stomachs were presumably not injected at the time of their collection because no collector mentioned any immediate preservation methods in his records.The injected birds contained parts of 13.75 animals per bird whereas the non-injected birds contained parts of only 5.13 animals per bird.Only birds containing some animal