106 THE WOODPECKERS 



minate and the tail itself more resembles that of 

 the tree-dwelling woodpeckers in shape ; the feet 

 are fitted for clinging to the trunk ; the bill, 

 now perfectly straight and no longer smoothly 

 rounded but buttressed by strong angles that 

 spring from the base and run down toward the 

 tip, is the bill of a woodpecker that lives by 

 drilling ; but the tongue is wholly unadapted 

 to catching grubs. What kind of food can an 

 arboreal woodpecker with a drilling bill find 

 upon a tree-trunk when his tongue can be ex- 

 tended only a fifth of an inch, and is furnished 

 with a brush of bristles at the end ? We have 

 answered that question before : he eats the inner 

 bark of trees and laps up the sap, for which 

 this brushy tip is excellently fitted. It has been 

 observed that the tongue much resembles the 

 tongues of insect-eating birds, which cannot be 

 extended beyond the end of the bill. It is true 

 that the sapsucker catches great numbers of in- 

 sects, taking them on the wing like a flycatcher. 

 But he also eats nearly as many ants as the 

 flicker, though their tongues are totally unlike. 

 We have made the mistake perhaps of thinking 

 that ants live only underground and can be 

 obtained only by tongues like those of the 

 flicker and the ant-bear, which hunt them there. 

 But ants are abundant on the surface of the 



