Tongue of Humming-Birds 89 
of by some naturalists as tubes into which they suck the 
honey by a piston-like movement of the tongue; but suction 
in the usual way would be just as effective; and I am satis- 
fied that this is not the primary use of the tongue, nor of 
the mechanism which enables it to be exserted to a great 
length beyond the end of the bill. The tongue, for one-half 
of its length, is semi-horny and cleft in two, the two halves 
are laid flat against each other when at rest, but can be 
separated at the will of the bird and form a delicate pliable 
pair of forceps, most admirably 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. 
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) has been felled 
for shingles, bringing down in its fall a number of the neigh- 
bouring 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 larve 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 
of the species were taken within a radius of four miles, having 
on one side the savannahs near Pital, on the other the ranges 
around Santo Domingo. Some run and fly only in the day- 
time, others towards evening and in the short twilight; but 
