SMELL. | 251 
these prominent nostrils are probably intended to 
render them 
“ Sagacious of their quarry from afar.” 
This opinion is rendered more probable from the 
very different structure of the nostrils in birds which 
feed on live fish. The pelicans, for example, have 
the cavity of the nostrils in general very small, and 
the marginal cartilage, as well as the opening in the 
bone, scareely perceptible, even in the skeleton. 
The cormorant (Carbo cormoranus, Meyer), again, 
which is ranked in the same group (Pelecanide, 
Leacu), has the nostrils so small that De Blainville 
says it is with difficulty a very small slit can be dis- 
tinguished at the base of the bill in the living birds, 
hence he designates them by the term Cryptorhinia. 
The same author describes in several species a sort 
of scale covering the nostrils like a lid, which must, 
we should imagine, diminish their power of smell 
by admitting only a minute portion of the air con- 
taining odoriferous particles. It is worthy of re- 
mark, that the kingfisher (Alcedo), though not a 
swimming bird like the pelicans and cormorants, 
has very small nostrils, with a cartilaginous lid; 
smell being, so far as we can judge, of inferior mo- 
ment to them, inasmuch as they feed almost exclu- 
sively on live fish, which they must discover and 
pursue by the eye. 
In ducks (Anatide, Leacn), many of whom seek 
their food among the mud at the bottom of standing 
water, the nerves of smell are greatly expanded, a 
fact which has been long known. “ Fiat-billed 
birds,” says Mr. Clayton, “that grope for their 
meat, have three pairs of nerves that come into their 
bills, whereby they have that accuracy to distin- 
guish what is proper for food and what to be reject- 
ed, by their taste, when they do not see it. This 
was most evident in a duck’s bill and head; ducks 
haying larger nerves that come into their bills than 
