WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



ing distance, owing to the great length of the ex- 

 tensile tongue bones, which, when the mouth is 

 closed, slip back into the sheaths that curve over 

 the back of the skull on each side and forward al- 

 most to the forehead. The tongue has little of the 

 horny and barbed character at the tip, so service- 

 able in other woodpeckers for spearing insects and 

 grubs and drawing them forth from hiding-places 

 in bark or decayed wood, but instead its sides and 

 upper surface are plentifully coated with small, 

 backward- pointing spines and papillae. "The mem- 

 bers of the genus," remarks Mr. F. A. Lucas, in 

 an article describing the structure of woodpeckers' 

 tongues, "are particularly fond of ants, and the 

 tongue seems especially adapted for exploring ant- 

 hills. The function of the fine points on the up- 

 per part of the tongue seems to be to form a 

 rough surface to which the sticky saliva will 

 readily adhere, and to which in turn the ants will 

 be stuck. In this genus the submaxillary sali- 

 vary glands reach the maximum size in the 

 group." 



The fondness of the flicker for ants is extreme. 

 Professor Beal found more than three thousand 

 by actual count in some of the stomachs he ex- 

 amined. "These were mostly small species that 



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