114 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. VII. 



adapted for picking out minute insects from amongst the 

 stamens of the flowers. The woodpecker, which has a 

 similar extensile mechanism for exserting its' tongue to a 

 great length, also uses it to procure its food in its case 

 soft grubs from holes in rotten trees and to enable it to 

 pull these out, the end of the tongue is sharp and horny, 

 and barbed with short stiff recurved bristles. 



Tongue of large red -crested Woodpecker. 



Continuing down the river, the road again crosses it, 

 and enters on the primeval forest almost untouched by 

 the hand of man, excepting in spots where the trees that 

 furnish the best charcoal have been cut down by the 

 charcoal-burners, or a gigantic isolated cedar (Cedrela 

 odorata) lias been felled for shingles, bringing down in its 

 fall a number of the neighbouring trees entangled in 

 the great bush ropes. Such open spots, letting in the 

 sunshine into the thick forests, were favourite stopping- 

 places ; for numerous butterflies frequent them, all 

 beautiful and most varied in their colours and marking. 

 The fallen trees, too, are the breeding-places of multitudes 

 of beetles, whose larva? riddle them with holes. Some 

 beetles frequent different varieties of timber, others are 

 peculiar to a single tree. The most noticeable of these 

 beetles are the numerous longicorns, to the collection of 

 which I paid a great deal of attention, and brought home 

 more than three hundred species. More than one-half 

 of these were new to science, and have been described by 

 Mr. Bates. To show how prolific the locality was in insect 

 life, I need only state that about two hundred and ninety 



