428 



BIRD. 



long, and the tip of the tongue formed as a sucker ; 

 but the bill is in some of the species straight, and in 

 others crooked. The hoopoe has the bill very long 

 and slightly arched, and feeds on tadpoles and other 

 produce ot marshy grounds. But the bills of these 

 birds are so unlike in their forms, and differ so much 

 in the uses to which they are applied, that none of 

 them can be taken as any thing approaching to an 

 average of the whole ; and indeed the character of 

 the anisodactylic feet is not much more perfect, for 

 in some, as in the nuthatch and creeper, it is a most 

 efficient climbing foot, yet in others it resembles 

 more the common foot of many of the insectivorous 

 birds. 



Bills of the Fissirostres. As all these birds use the 

 bill, and the bill only, in the capture of their prey, 

 and as they catch it on the wing, the bill affords a 

 very good general character. They are all feeders 

 upon insects, and generally capture them by speed of 

 flight. They fly at smaller game, and capture it only 

 with the bill ; but they admit of a division into diur- 

 nal and nocturnal, something resembling that of the 

 birds of prey. The" diurnal ones are the swifts and 

 swallows, the former the longest flighted of birds and 

 the most unwearied on the wing. The latter soft 

 and loose feathered, and rather clumsy in their flight, 

 as is the case with the owls. This subdivision con- 

 tains the goat-suckers and the Podargi, some species 

 of which bear a resemblance to some of the owls, and 

 have stronger bills than the rest of the family. 



The bill in all of them is remarkable for the wide- 

 ness of its gape, and the breadth of the mandibles at 

 their bases ; and it is sometimes provided with a 

 viscid secretion to which the insects adhere, and at 

 others with mustaches, in which they are caught, or 

 at least prevented from escaping out of the mouth. 



The bill of the common goat-sucker is probably 

 the most typical of the whole, at least it is more ex- 

 clusively used in preying; as the bird not only feeds 

 in the twilight, but flies with the eyes in such a 

 position as that they can be of little or no use. 



Goat-sucker. 



Bills of the Syndactyli.The bills of the syn- 

 dactylous birds also differ considerably in their forms, 

 because the food differs in kind ; and there is no 

 doubt that it was on account of this difference of the 

 food that Cuvier named this division after the struc- 

 ture of the feet, and not that of the bills, for the kind 

 of food is the principal ground of his arrangement. 

 But in the case of birds the kind of food is not so 

 descriptive of the whole character as in the mammalia, 

 because the form of the bill depends also upon the 

 manner in which the food is arrived at. 



In the birds which should properly belong to this 

 division, the prey is arrived at on the wings, though 

 Cuvier, from having taken the united toes as the 



general charactci, /ias included in it the hornbills, 

 which, in some of the species at least, are as trulv 

 omnivorous as the crows, feeding on carrion, and of 

 course feeding on the ground, not on the wing. 



Leaving these out, there remain four genera, all of 

 which have the bill long, and catch their prey by the 

 snap, or quick compression of the mandibles against 

 each other. The bee-eaters (merops) have the bill 

 rather long, tapering to the point, slightly curved in 

 its whole length, and sharp in the cutting edges. 

 That of the rnotmots (prionltes], which, in some 

 respects, answer in America to the bee-eaters of the 

 eastern continent, is much stouter, having a con- 

 siderable resemblance to the bill of hornbills, though 

 without the enlargement at the base of the upper 

 mandible, by which the bills of that genus are dis- 

 tinguished. The bill of the motmot is serrated in 

 both mandibles, and the tongue is barbed or feathered 

 like that of the toucans. Indeed, it should seem 

 that this genus, as well as the former, ought to be 

 included among the omnivorous birds, notwithstanding 

 the syndactylic feet ; the feet of birds in this division 

 come so little into play in those which really belong 

 to it, that they are hardly of sufficient importance for 

 being made the ground of classification. Besides, 

 these birds kill other little birds, either by gnawing 

 them between the serrated edges of the mandibles, 

 or beating them against the ground. They are indeed 

 chiefly ground birds, bad fliers, and though in great 

 part living upon insects, they catch them upon the 

 ground ; and almost the only habits which they have 

 in common with the typical birds of the order, are 

 living solitarf, and nestling in holes of the ground. 



The kingfishers have the bill robust, quadrangular, 

 and straight ; and though it is a fishing spear rather 

 than an insectivorous bill, it agrees with that of the 

 bne-eaters in being used on the wing. The following 

 figure of that of the common kingfisher of Europe 

 will give some idea of its general form. 



Kingfisher. 



The remaining genera of this division, none of 

 which are European birds, have the bill bearing a 

 considerable resemblance to that of the kingfisher, 

 which may be considered as the most characteristic 

 bill. 



Bills of the Scansores. These, the climbing, or 

 Zygndactylic birds, have nogeneral character in the bill 

 which can be applied to the whole, though in the 

 smaller grades into which the order may be divided, 

 the bill is sufficiently characteristic of the food and 

 manner of feeding. 



The whole order are forest birds ; and, with the 

 exception of the woodpeckers, some of which inhabit 

 the cold or the medium climates, they are all tropical 

 birds, or birds of the warm countries ; of those wild 

 forests which have been sown by the hand of nature, 

 and in which every tree is the very best adapted to 

 the spot on which it grows. Every animal of these 

 teeming climes is also produced under circumstances 

 the most favourable to its development and subsist- 

 ence ; and the energies of life of all kinds, obeying 1 



