88 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



human way, though it will be noticed that as the 

 foot ca'nnot be turned inwards, as it is by fruit- 

 bats when behaving rather similarly, it is the 

 knuckles or dorsal surface of the foot that is pre- 

 sented to the mouth. The habit, however, of 

 " fisting it " when feeding is not universal among 

 Parrots, being not practised, by the little Love- 

 birds (Aga<pornis), the Budgerigar (Melopsittacus), 

 and no doubt many others. The Kea when 

 holding food in the foot does not raise this, but 

 rests it on the hock, so that it has to stoop to its 

 food, thus showing the habit less perfectly developed, 

 as one would expect from its less specialized struc- 

 ture. 



It is in this way, too, that those passerine birds, 

 other than Crows and Tits, which use their feet in 

 feeding hold their food ; such are the Shrikes and 

 the Babblers, though the habit is not universal 

 here either, albeit very characteristic of the more 

 typical genera. Finches have very generally the 

 habit of holding down food on to the perch with 

 one foot, as any one may see on presenting the 

 family Canary with a piece of salad, but, as I re- 

 marked in the first chapter, Sparrows do not 

 do this, and no doubt other Finches are equally 

 inept ; but the point has probably never been 

 worked out. 



Woodpeckers and Barbets seem not to use their 

 feet in feeding, though the former will wedge an 

 object into a crack to hammer it, like the passerine 

 Nuthatch ; but Toucans in some cases hold food 



