20 BILLS OF BIRDS 



if it followed them into marshy lands, it could probe 

 the soft ground and drag them out of their chambers. 

 For this operation it has now a bill three inches 

 long, straight, thin and sensitive at the tip, a beautiful 

 instrument, but good for no purpose except extract- 

 ing worms from soft ground. If frost or drought 

 hardens the ground, the snipe must starve or travel. 

 Among the many " lang nebbit " birds that follow 

 the same profession as the snipe, some, like the 

 curlew and the ibis, have curved bills of prodigious 

 length. I do not know the comparative advantages 

 of the two forms, but no doubt each bird swears by 

 its own pattern, as every golfer does by his own 

 putter. 



But now behold another grub-hunter, which, 

 distasting mud, has discovered an unworked mine 

 in the trunks of trees. There, in deep burrows, 

 lurked great succulent bettle-grubs, demanding only 

 a tool with which they might be dug out. This 

 has been perfected by many stages, and I have now 

 before me a splendid specimen of the most improved 

 pattern — namely, the bill of the great black wood- 

 pecker of Western India, a bird nearly as big as a 

 crow. It is nothing else than a hatchet in two 

 parts, which, when locked together, present a steeled 

 edge about three-eighths of an inch in breadth. The 

 hatchet is two and a half inches long by one in 

 breadth at the base, and a prominent ridge, or keel, 

 runs down the top from base to point. It is further 

 strengthened by a keel on each side. Inside of it, 



