THE TONGUES OF BIRDS. 



By Frederic A. Lucas, 

 Curator, Department of Comparative Anatomy, U. S. National Museum. 



The tongues of birds have been not exactly overlooked, but some- 

 what neglected, by ornithologists, and it is the object of this paper to 

 note a few of their interesting features and to call attention to some 

 of the problems connected with them, in the hope that our younger 

 ornithologists may devote some time to their study. The collecting of 

 skins is undoubtedly the most attractive form of ornithological work, 

 and I do not wish to be looked upon as in anyway disparaging this 

 branch of ornithology with its bearing on the questions of iiulividual 

 variation, color changes, geographical distribution, and the like; but 

 there are so many points on which general deductions can only be 

 made through the patient accumulation and careful sifting of facts 

 that it seems at least unfortunate that more attention is not paid to 

 them by those who have the leisure to do so. It is an easy matter for 

 anyone engaged in collecting skins to gather abundant material for 

 the study of tongues,' and it seems a pity that so many good speci- 

 mens should have been wasted when they could so readily have been 

 preserv^ed. 



While the tongue is so intimately related to the beak, there is less 

 unity of purpose between them than might at first sight be supposed, 

 and the size or shape of the one is no criterion as to the size or shape 

 of the other. The beak of a bird serves the purpose of a hand. 

 With it he chips the shell and introduces himself to the world; with 

 the beak the bird gathers its food, preens its feathers, builds a nest. 

 He may use it, like the parrots, in climbing, or, like the Carolina parra- 

 keet, may even hang himself up to sleep on the inside of a hollow stump. 

 It would sound well to continue the simile, and say that as the bird's 

 beak is a hand, so the tongue is a finger; but the true and the beauti- 

 ful are by no means as synonymous as one might wisli, and all that 

 can be truthfully said is that sometimes, or to some extent, the tongue 



^Thus, my friends, Messrs. William Palmer, E. J. Brown, and the late R. S. Mat- 

 thews, while collecting the birds of Washington and the vicinity, have supplied me 

 with a large amoiint of material, all the more valuable because it was quite fresh. 



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