PECULIAR ORGANIZATIONS. 145 



but design ever produces such 1 The woodpecker lives 

 chiefly upon insects, lodged in the bodies of decayed or de- 

 caying trees. For the purpose of boring into the wood, it 

 is furnished with a bill, straight, hard, angular, and sharp. 

 When, by means of this piercer, it has reached the cells of 

 the insects, then comes the office of its tongue ; which 

 tongue is first, of such a length that the bird can dart it out 

 three or four inches from the bill, in this respect differing 

 ^reat'iy from every other species of bird ; in the second 

 place, it is tipped with a stiff, sharp, bony thorn ; and, in 

 the third place, which appears to me the most remarkable 

 property of all, this tip is dentated on both sides, like the 

 beard of an arrow or the barb of a hook. The description 

 of the part declares its uses. The bird, having exposed the 

 retreats of the insects by the assistance of its bill, with a 

 motion inconceivably quick, launches out at them this long 

 tongue ; transfixes them upon the barbed needle at the end 

 of it ; and thus draws its prey within its mouth. If this 

 be not mechanism, what is ? Should it be said, that, by 

 continual endeavours to shoot out the tongue to the stretch, 

 the woodpecker species may by degrees have lengthened 

 the organ itself, beyond that of other birds, what account 

 can be given of its form ; of its tip ? How, in particular, did 

 it get its barbs, its dentation ? These barbs, in my opinion, 

 wherever they occur, are decisive proofs of mechanical 

 contrivance. 



IIL I shall add one more example for the sake of its 

 novelty. It is always an agreeable discovery, when having 

 remarked in an animal an extraordinary structure, we come 

 at length to find out an unexpected use for it. The follow- 

 ing narrative, which Goldsmith has taken from Buffon, fur- 

 nishes an instance of this kind. The babyrouessa or In- 

 dian hog, a species of wild boar found in the East-Indies, 

 has two bent teeth, more than half a yard long, growing 

 upwards, and, which is the singularity, from the upper jaw, 

 (PI. XXVII. fig. 4.) These instruments are not wanted 

 for offence, that service being provided for by two tusks is-, 

 suing from the under jaw, and resembling those of the com- 

 mon boar. Nor does the animal use them for defence. 

 They might seem, therefore, to be both a superfluity and 

 an encumbrance. But observe the event. The animal 

 hitches one of these bent upper teeth upon the branch of a 

 tree, and then suffers its whole body to swing from it. This 

 is its manner of taking repose, and of consulting for its 



