46 THE STORY OF BIRD-LIFE. 



The honeyeaters of the New Zealand and 

 Australian regions, the sun-birds of Africa, India, 

 and Australia, and the humming-birds of America, 

 have the most remarkable tongues of all birds. 

 They are much too complicated to describe. 

 Those who wish to know more about them 

 should consult the various works on bird 

 anatomy. Suffice it to say, that they resemble 

 one another, in that the edges of the right 

 and left sides of the tongue are of extreme thin- 

 ness and rolled up in different ways to form more 

 or less complicated tubes. The exact use of 

 these tubes is even now a matter of dispute. 

 Some hold they are for the purpose of sucking 

 up honey or nectar — after the fashion of the pro- 

 boscis of a butterfly which they rather closely 

 resemble — and some, that their purpose is to 

 "coax" insects from the flowers whose honey 

 they have come to feast on. Certainly insects 

 are always found in the stomachs of these birds. 

 It may be that the birds really come for the 

 honey, and that the insects are swallowed un- 

 intentionally, a sort of fortunate accident, the 

 mixture rendering the diet a more nourishing 

 one than would otherwise be the case. 



Take the woodpeckers again, birds that can 

 be seen in almost any of our English woods. 

 Here the tongue has grown to an enormous 

 length, so much so that it can be projected far 

 beyond the head. The bird feeds on ants. After 

 exposing the nest or otherwise disturbing the 

 inmates, the long, v/orm-like tongue, covered 

 with a sticky mat6rial secreted by glands at 

 the sides of the head, is thrust in amongst th^ 



