112 COilPAlUSOXS OF STEUCTURE IX AiilMALS. 



sucli as the woodcock and suipe, wliicli pliiuge 

 their beaks iuto the ooze in quest of insects, 

 have the sense of touch in great delicacy. la 

 these birds the long beak is s\Yollen, soft, and 

 pulpy at the tip, Avhere the skin is minutely 

 dimpled, and supplied with a mesh of nerves, 

 forming a tissue of high sensibility; it is de- 

 cidedly by the sense of touch that the snipe, 

 the ■\vcodcock, the ruff, the curlew, and other 

 allied species, procure their food ; if we look at 

 the bony fabric of the beak cleared of the soft 

 pulpy skin which covers it, we shall find the 

 tip riddled with minute and closely-set orifices 

 for the exit of the nerves and blood-vessels. 

 There is another tribe of bii'ds, in which the 

 beak and tongue are endoAved -ivith a very re- 

 fined degree of the sense of touch — we mean the 

 swans and ducks, and also the flamingo. In 

 these birds the broad beak is adapted for 

 groping in the mud ; it is covered with a deli- 

 cate leathery skin, and the edges are laminated, 

 or furnished with closely-set transverse plates, 

 acting as a strainer, and more developed in 

 some species than in others. * In some spe- 



* They remind us of ilie plates of baleen in the whale; uor 

 is the tongue of the whale, and the flamingo or duck, very 

 dissimilar. 



