98 AVES. 



and filamentary papillae. Other Parrots, as the Lorikeets (Tricho- 

 glossus), are furnished with an extensile tongue terminated by a pen- 

 cil of hairs (whence the generic name), adapting them admirably 

 for feeding upon the nectar of flowers. In the Woodpeckers the 

 tongue is very long, slender, and vermiform, and beset with small 

 retroverted hooks. In the Humming-birds it is also very long and, 

 as in many other birds, deeply slit at the apex, but each half is in 

 them hollowed out into the form of a groove, so that the two divi- 

 sions when approximated form a tube, which serves as a syphon for 

 pumping up the nectar from the flowers. The tongue is in the 

 Flamingo exceedingly large, angularly curved, and fleshy, or rather 

 provided with an abundant cellular and adipose tissue (upon which 

 account it was esteemed by the Roman emperors as a savory arti- 

 cle of food), and its upper surface is covered with recurved spinous 

 papillae. It is, on the contrary, extremely small and rudimentary 

 in the Picariae and Auks, and even more so in the Pelican and Gan- 

 net (Sula), where in fact the styliform and slightly curved hyoid 

 cartilage covered by the mucous membrane of the mouth is all that 

 can be detected, so that a proper tongue may be said to be completely 

 wanting. In the Tenuirostral and Passerine birds generally, the 

 greater part of the gustatory organ is horny with acute lateral mar- 

 gins. Frequently, as in the Toucans (Ramphastos), it is comb or 

 brush-shaped upon either side, from being provided with horny frin- 

 ges. There is found within the substance of the tongue posteriorly 

 a usually double, rarely single, cartilaginous or frequently osseous 

 body (os linguale, ossa entoglossa NitzcJi), which abuts against the 

 hyoid bone, and forms at the same time the apicial portion of its 

 body. In the two-toed Ostrich (Struthio camelus) this lingual ossicle 

 coalesces with the hyoid bone, and in many Birds consists of an ante- 

 rior and posterior division. 



The Os hyoides consists of an elongated and narrow body, which 

 usually extends posteriorly into a short pointed, or longer filamen- 

 tary cartilaginous portion, and has upon the middle of its sides or 

 more posteriorly a pair of articulating surfaces for the lesser cornua. 

 These are often very long, and formed of an anterior thicker osseous, 

 and a posterior slenderer piece, which is more or less cartilaginous, 

 and terminates in a filamentary manner. In the Woodpeckers and 

 also in the Humming-birds peculiar modifications are exhibited in 

 the arrangement of the above parts ; in them the cornua of the os 

 hyoides are exceedingly long and slender, and continued round the 

 skull beneath the skin to the base of the upper mandible, where their 



