COMPARING BILLS. 101 



bills, equally sensitive and nearly as long in proportion to 

 their own size, and capable of being opened at the tip with- 

 out opening the whole length of the gape. I have noticed 

 the same peculiarity in woodpeckers' bills, and these, like 

 the snipe, seek their food by digging it out of deep holes. 

 Sometimes when walking through alder ground, or in muddy 

 places, we may see the "borings" made by woodcock and 

 snipe where they have fed at night. At first we might mistake 

 them for wormholes, but there are no "casts" about, and 

 they are too numerous and too near together to be made by 

 worms, and if you look intently perhaps you may see the 

 prints of a bird's foot. 



The white pelican's is the longest bill without reference to 

 the bird's size. Watch him some day in the park and see 

 the flat upper mandible pointing straight down his breast as 

 he sits thinking, or lifted with its pendulous pouch beneath 

 as he looks up in anger or expectation. Surely this bird with 

 a bag is grotesque enough. 



A bill hooked at the tip is almost a sure sign that the bird 

 lives on animal food, and the sharpness of the tip and decision 

 of the curve are guides to the strength and liveliness or to the 

 toughness of the flesh of the prey it contends with. So we 

 find a slight hook at the tip of the bill of the insect-eating 

 flycatchers, a stronger point to the fish-eating frigate pelican's, 

 and an abruj)t hook in the bills of the hawks, owls, and 

 eagles. 



Some fish-eating and insect-eating birds, as the terns, herons, 

 and humming-birds, have straight bills; but a hooked beak, 

 which is the characteristic mark of the raptores or birds of 

 prey, often indicates a more or less raptorial character. 



Sometimes a hooked beak may have another use, as in parrots 

 and cross-bills. But you will notice that the hawk's bill is 



