58 PRACTICAL ORNITHOLOGY. 



surface and sides are covered with very delicate acicular, stif- 

 fish, reversed bristles or prickles. These prickles assist in at- 

 taching the insect or larva to be seized, but the object is not 

 transfixed, as some have imagined, otherwise, being so delicate, 

 the bristles would be broken, or at all events would render it im- 

 possible to disengage the insect for the purpose of swallowing it. 

 The fleshy part of the tongue is 1^ inch in length, its horny 

 tip } ; but it may be drawn out so that the tip shall be pro- 

 truded nearly 2 inches beyond the tip of the bill ; it being in 

 this state 3/g inches long. The protrusion is seen to be effect- 

 ed, not by any elasticity or extensility of the tongue, but in 

 consequence of its basal part sliding forwards from within a 

 sheath, which is lined with a smooth membrane, continuous 

 with that which covers the tongue, of which the basal part 

 when retracted is withdrawn by a kind of intussusception, or 

 as if by turning the finger of a glove partly within itself. Be- 

 sides its general coverinGf, and some delicate muscles, the tonsue 

 has internally a very slender bone, not thicker than a strong 

 hog's bristle, 1/^ inch in length, tipped by a broader, some- 

 what sagittiform bone, f-^ long, which is the basis of the horny 

 part. The long bone is the basi-hyal, and the small terminal 

 one the glosso-hyal. Appended to the base of the former are 

 two filiform bones, Ij inch long, to which are appended two 

 still more slender bones, 5j inches in length. These bones, 

 the apohyal and ceratohyal, are flattened and tapering, and 

 diverging as they proceed backward, curve on the sides of the 

 neck, ascend, converge on passing the neck, meet on the top 

 of the head, leave the median line when opposite the eyes, 

 digressing to the right side, and terminate near the base of the 

 upper mandible, being attached by two slender ligaments to the 

 outer side of the depression in which the right nostril is si- 

 tuated. The length from the tip of the bill to that of the hyoid 

 bones is 8^''^ inches, AVe have thus the solid parts represented 

 by the diagrams Figs. 1 and 2. 



A tongue of this kind may be protruded in two ways. Either 

 the elongated apohyal and ceratohyal bones may be made to slide 

 in a sheath, so that their tips shall pass from the forehead to the 

 occiput, or even as far as the base of the lower jaw, in which 



