. Bird-lore . scrib-ing the little pitchfork the Chickadee car-ries by way of a tongue to the fact thatTHE chickadees such a thing would be useful for prying FORK insects and their eggs out of chinks in the bark of trees, but it is difficult even for theory to explainwhy some birds have just such tongues as they do : why,for example, the big-billed Toucan should have a tonguevery much like a long, loose feather, or that of the Pen-guin should be made up of long spines. Perhaps whenthe habits of these birds are better known we may see the r ^, , r 1 ■ -1 , . THE PENGUINS reasons tor the shapes
. Bird-lore . scrib-ing the little pitchfork the Chickadee car-ries by way of a tongue to the fact thatTHE chickadees such a thing would be useful for prying FORK insects and their eggs out of chinks in the bark of trees, but it is difficult even for theory to explainwhy some birds have just such tongues as they do : why,for example, the big-billed Toucan should have a tonguevery much like a long, loose feather, or that of the Pen-guin should be made up of long spines. Perhaps whenthe habits of these birds are better known we may see the r ^, , r 1 ■ -1 , . THE PENGUINS reasons tor the shapes ot their tongues, and the spmy rake Vl 8 Bird-Lore tongue of the Penguin may be very serviceable for catching or holdingsmall crustaceans and fishes. Before going farther it may be well to glance for a moment atthe seven or eight little bones forming the hyoid, or framework onwhich the tongue is built, and to which are attached the musclesthat move it. The two foremost of these little bones, often so closely. THE HYOID OF THE PEWEE united as to appear one, are imbedded in the body of the tongueitself, together with the single bone to which they are attached,while the hindmost pair curl up around the back of the skull, andfrom the varying proportions of these bones we can tell somethingof the manner in which and extent to which the tongue is used. Ifthe foremost bones are long the tongue is long, if they are stout thetongue is thick and fleshy, as in the Ducks, and if they are almostwanting, as in the Cormorants, then there is no tongue to speak hindmost bones determine the extent to which the tongue canbe protruded: if they are long the tongue is very extensile, if theyare short it is but little so. In the Hummingbirds these epibran-chials, as they are called, run back over the skull, meet one another,and extend forward side by side to the very base of the bill. Itmight be thought that this marked the utmost limit of length at-tainable, but some of the Woodpeckers mana
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirdsperiodicals
