STEUCTTJEAL PECULIAEITIES. 67 



Humming-birds, has its fimbriated tip moistened 

 with a glutinous saliva, and is thereby enabled 

 to drag forth insects from their concealment, for 

 they are not transfixed by the point of the 

 tongue as some have supposed. The toad, the 

 frog, the chamelion, are among reptiles examples 

 in which a projectile tongue is lubricated by a 

 viscid secretion for the purpose of securing in- 

 sects. But the double spatulate extremity of 

 the tongue of the Humming-bird, fimbriated 

 along the margin, lubricated, capable besides of 

 seizing, and moreover, as we believe, endowed 

 with exquisite sensibility, is a more perfect in- 

 strument than that of the woodpecker, or of the 

 reptiles alluded to. In no other vertebrate ani- 

 mals, as far as we know, is the tongue constructed 

 as a tubular sucking-pump; so far the Humming- 

 birds stand alone, and this circumstance in itself, 

 considering it with reference to organic struc- 

 ture, might be adduced as a reason for regarding 

 these birds as a distinct order. "We do not here 

 forget the filamentous -tongued Parrakeets, Tri- 

 choglossi, which feed on the nectar of flowers. 

 In these birds the tongue is brush-like, being 

 fringed at the tip with (as it is said) tubular 

 processes or filaments, and is capable of consider- 

 able protusion. We doubt the tubular structure 

 of the filaments forming the brush, and certainly 

 the tongue itself is not tubular. It appears to 

 us, that the Trichoglossi dip their tongues into 

 the nectaries of flowers, saturate the brush, and 



