TASTE. 255 
will devour flies of every sort, will not touch a spi- 
der, and while it will eat almost any smooth cater- 
pillar (Phlogophora meticulosa, Mamestra brassice, 
§c.), it will not touch those of the cabbage butterfly 
(Pontia trassice), which the fauvette devoured with 
avidity. Neither of these birds again, nor the night- 
ingale, will touch an earthworm, of which the red- 
breast is very fond. No bird will touch the cater- 
pillar of the magpie moth. 
These facts, and many more of a similar kind, 
which we could easily enumerate, fully authorize 
us, we think, to conclude, that some birds at least 
are endowed with the faculty of taste; though this 
is expressly or partially denied by certain authors 
distinguished for accuracy of observation, such as 
Colonel Montagu and M. Blumenbach, because in 
several species “the tongue is horny, stiff, not sup- 
plied with nerves, and, consequently, unfit for an 
organ of taste.” But it does not follow, because 
the tongue in most other animals is the chief organ 
of taste, that birds with a horny tongue destitute of 
nerves cannot discriminate their food by taste, since 
other parts of the mouth may perform this office; 
an inference rendered more probable from the 
structure and texture of the mouth, and from what 
takes place in man and quadrupeds. 
Now all birds possess a tongue, though in some 
species, such as the pelican (Onocrotalus pelecanus, 
ALPROvVAND), it is so very small that its very exist- 
ence has been denied by several good observers; 
among whom, Willoughby says, “I could not see 
any tongue; but where the root of the tongue was 
fixed I observed certain perforate bodies :” and Ray 
adds, “neither could Faber, who saw this same 
bird afterward at Rome, find the tongue, though he 
searched diligently for it."* The gulls (Laride, 
Leacu), and the cormorant (Carbo carmoranus, Mry- 
* Ray’s Willoughby, Ornith., p. 327. 
