168 NATURAL THEOLOG-I. 



most remarkable property of all — this tip is dentated on bolt 

 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 bo 

 Baid, that by continual endeavors 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 partic- 

 ular, did it get its barb, its dentation ? These barbs, in my 

 opinion, wherever they occur, are decisive proofs of mechan- 

 ical contrivance. 



III. 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 furnishes an instance of this kind. The baby- 

 roussa, or Indian hog, a species of Avild 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. These instruments are not wanted for ofTence , 

 that service being provided for by two tusks issuing from the 

 under-jaw, and resembling those of the common boar : nor 

 does the animal use them for defence. They might seem, 

 therefore, to be both a superfluity and an incumbrance. But 

 observe the event : the animal sleeps standing ; and in order 

 to support its head, hooks its upper tusks upon the branches 

 of trees. 



* See Plate V., Fig. 2. 



