THE ADAPTIVE MODIFICATIONS AND THE TAXONOMIC 

 VALUE OF THE TONGUE IN BIRDS 



By Leon L. Gardner, 



Of the United States Army Medical Corps 



Since the work of Lucas ^ there has been little systematic investiga- 

 tion on the tongues of birds, and with the exception of an occasional 

 description the subject has been largely neglected. It is in the hope 

 of reopening interest in the subject that this paper is written. 



As is well known the tongue is an exceptionally variable organ in 

 the Class Aves, as is to be expected from the fact that it is so inti- 

 mately related with the birds' most important problem, that of 

 obtaining food. For this function it must serve as a probe or spear 

 (woodpeckers and nuthatches), a sieve (ducks), a capillary tube 

 (sunbirds and hummers), a brush (Trichoglossidae), a rasp (vul- 

 tures, hawks, and owls), as a barbed organ to hold slippery prey 

 (penguins), as a finger (parrots and sparrows), and perhaps as a 

 tactile organ in long-billed birds, such as sandpipers, herons, and the 

 like. 



The material upon which this paper is based is the very extensive 

 alcoholic collection of birds in the United States National Museum, 

 Washington, D. C, for the use of which and for his abundant aid 

 in numberless ways I am very much indebted to Dr. Charles W. 

 Richmond, associate curator of the Division of Birds. To Dr. 

 Alexander Wetmore, assistant secretary in charge of the United 

 States National Museum, I wish to express my thanks for his kind 

 assistance in reviewing the paper and for his help in its preparation. 



Part of the material is from my own collection which is now filed 

 with the Museum and which came to me in many ways. Dr. Witmer 

 Stone, director of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 

 furnished me with much from foreign sources for which I am greatly 



» Lucas, F. A. The Taxonomic Value of the Tongue. in Birds, The Auk, vol. 13, No. 2, 

 April, 1896, pp. 109-115. 



Lucas, P. A. The Tongues of Woodpeckers. Bulletin No. 7, U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture, Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy. 



Lucas, F. A. (1897). The Tongues of Birds. Report of U. S. National Museum, 1895, 

 pp. 1003-1020. 



No. 2591. — Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 67, Art. 19. 



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