226 



A YEAR WITH NATURE. 



flattened, and straight, with a hooked projection at the extremity 

 of the upper mandible. To see these birds plunge their long 

 beaks and necks under water, and net the fish in their 

 capacious pouches, is a sight worth seeing, and the dimensions 

 of the pouch may well be imagined when I state that it is so 



dilatable as to be capable 

 of containing two gallons 

 of water; yet the bird has 

 the power of contracting 

 this membranous expansion, 

 by wrinkling it up under 

 the lower mandible until it 

 is scarcely to be seen ! 



The illustration of the 



Wryneck enables me to exhibit the beak and tongue of this 

 bird, the long, retractile tongue affording it the opportunity of 

 taking insects from the ant-hills, which it visits in a similar 

 manner to the Green Woodpecker. 



My last illustration is certainly not by any means the least 

 as regards its proportions. It is a very long beak, more or less 

 curved upwards, and soft and flexible. This Godwit is practi- 

 cally an extinct British Bird, and with the remark that it 

 undergoes with other allied species a double moult, which 

 nearly changes the entire colour of the plumage and has led 

 to some confusion, my little sketch closes. 



BEAK OF BLACK-TAILED GODWIT. 



