80 FACULTIES OP BIRDS. 



In some instances it may be that the worm-casts 

 point out to the woodcock where to dig for the worms, 

 but such an explanation will not apply to all the 

 facts just quoted from Montagu and Bowles. A 

 recent author seems inclined, however, to doubt that 

 the woodcock is guided by smell, and remarks that 

 " the bill being inserted only as far as the nostrils 

 proves nothing but the necessity of preserving respira- 

 tion ; and the bill once fixed in the earth the position 

 of the nostrils must be a matter of total indifference. 

 We cannot conclude that, anteriorly to the insertion 

 of the bill, smell had any thing more to do with the 

 precision of the action than sight. The organ of this 

 sense is in general so obtuse among birds, that it is 

 contrary to analogy to suppose the woodcock pecu- 

 liarly privileged in its enjoyment, more especially as, 

 in consequence of the fleshy substance which ter- 

 minates its upper mandible, it is already endued with 

 a species of tact calculated to enable it to discover 

 suitable aliment in wet and muddy ground*." We 

 may remark, however, that if touch or taste be meant 

 by tact, neither of these would enable the bird to 

 discover worms deep in the earth, any more than it 

 would enable swine or dogs to find truffles, or the 

 mole to drive a burrow in a straight line from its 

 nest to a stone at several yards distance. 



* Cuvier's Anim. Kingdom, by Griffith, viii. 524. 



