TASTE. 83 



humbler-appetited natives ; they are away to sunnier 

 regions and more grateful food *.'* 



With respect to insects and other small animals 

 upon which the same birds also feed, they are equally 

 nice in their preferences and rejections. We had a fau- 

 vette (Philomela hortensis), for example, which was 

 exceedingly fond of spiders (P/ialangium opilio, 

 Epeira diadema, 4*c.) 5 the largest of which it would 

 contrive to swallow ; but the black-cap, though it will 

 devour flies of every sort, will not touch a spider, and 

 while it will eat almost any smooth caterpillar 

 (Phlogophora meticulosa, Mamestra brassier, 4'c.), 

 it will not touch those of the cabbage butterfly (Pontia 

 brassica), which the fauvette devoured with avidity. 

 Neither of these birds again, nor the nightingale, will 

 touch an earth-worm, of which the red- breast is very 

 fondf. No bird will touch the caterpillar of the 

 magpie moth. 



These facts and many more of a similar kind, which 

 we could easily enumerate, fully authorize us, we think, 

 to conclude, that some birds at least are endowed 

 with the faculty of taste ; though this is expressly or 

 partially denied by certain authors distinguished for 

 accuracy of observation, such as Colonel Montagu 

 and M. Blumenbach, because in several species ''the 

 tongue is horny, stiff, not supplied with nerves, and 

 consequently unfit for an organ of taste 4'* But it 

 does not follow, because the tongue in most other 

 animals is the chief organ of taste, that birds with 

 a horny tongue destitute of nerves cannot discriminate 

 their food by taste, since other parts of the mouth may 

 perform this office ; an inference rendered more pro- 

 bable, from the structure and texture of the mouth, 

 and from what takes place in man and quadrupeds. 



It is obvious to the most casual observer, that the 

 upper surface of the tongue in man does not appear 



* Journ. of a Naturalist, p. 232, 3d edit. 

 t J. R. J Blumeubach, Comp. Anat. 233. 



