504 Mr. C. F. M. Swynnerton on 



the back o£ tlie tongue and the palate hoth quite commonly 

 failed to respond to stimuli that tickled my face, but were 

 not felt between my knuckles. Yet the same stimulus 

 applied to the gullet (the tongue not being touched) often 

 led to swallowing. (3) The back of the tongue often failed 

 to respond to faintly stronger stimuli that prodiaced 

 swallowing if applied to the palate. This was noted in 

 Prinia and three species of Cisticola, and verified by 

 experiment after experiment. Sometimes a light object 

 was left lying on the spots, or a small grasshopper tegmen, 

 or piece of chitinous flesh was rubbed back and forth on 

 them, yet failed to produce swallowing till it touched the 

 palate — which was spotless. Conversely, the most sensitive 

 tongues I tested were some of Pyromelana — which are 

 spotless. (4) My general experience of parent-birds has 

 been that they push the food well into the mouth, and do 

 not merely lay it on the lower mandible, where the base of the 

 twin-spot tongue often lies, pushed forward, when the nestling 

 is asking for food. But I have to make a larger number of 

 special observations before I can suggest that this is in- 

 variably the case. (5) The nestlings used were of all ages, 

 from an individual that I took alive from the eg^ to 

 practically full-fledged birds, and I also used in each case 

 the bills of adult birds of the species. The points of these 

 practically filled the mouths of very young nestlings and 

 gave a simultaneous stimulus at several points. When the 

 nestlings were older, the bill still commonly touched both 

 palate and tongue, and led to swallowing even when insert( d 

 beside the tongue, the nestling merely turning its head 

 slightly in that direction. And the bill-point is smaller than 

 numerous objects of food that I have watched the parent- 

 birds push into the mouths of their young. 



Altogether, with the best will in the world, I was quite 

 unable to discover any possible use for the spots in relation 

 to the parent-bii'd, though observation may yet, I suppose, 

 reveal one. 



With the flange- and palatal-markings of the Estrildinae 

 it is quite likely different. The spotted tongues and palates 



