TASTE. 105 



woodcock penetrates still deeper into moist earth, 

 which is the bed in which the food of that species 

 is lodged. This is exactly the instrument which the 

 animal wanted. It did not want strength in its bill, 

 which was inconsistent with the slender form of the 

 animal's neck, as well as unnecessary for the kind of 

 aliment upon which it subsists ; but it wanted length 

 to reach its object*." In the curlew (Numenius 

 arquata, LATHAM), besides, in the woodcock, and the 

 snipe, there are, as in ducks, three large pairs of 

 nerves almost equal to the optic nerve in thickness, 

 which pass along the palate and then along the upper 

 mandible to the very point of the bill. 



" If we look," says Sir Charles Bell, " to the man- 

 dible of a bird, we shall find that it is withal a fly- 

 trap hence, its motions must be rapid ; and the 

 velocity is increased by the most obvious means ima- 

 ginable, that is, by giving motion to both mandibles, 

 instead of to one. When a dog snaps, he throws 

 back his head, and thereby raises the upper jaw, at 

 the same time that the lower jaw is dropped ; but 

 these are slow and clumsy motions, pertaining to the 

 muscles of the neck as well as of the jaws ; and the 

 poor hound makes many attempts before he catches 

 the fly that teazes him. But a swallow or fly-catcher 

 makes no second effort, so admirably suited is the 

 apparatus of prehension to the liveliness of the eye 

 and the instinct. The adaptation of the instrument 

 consists in this, that the muscles which open the lower 

 mandible, by the same effort, open the upper one. A 

 process of the lower mandible, projecting much be- 

 hind the centre of motion, and the muscle which is 

 attached to it, opens the bill ; but, at the same time, 

 the lower mandible presses upon the bone, the os qua- 

 dratum. Now, there is attached to this bone, pro- 

 jecting forwards, with its anterior extremity fixed 

 *Nat. Theology, p. 223. 



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