Organs of Nutrition 125 
such extension of tongue as the deep burrows of the 
ants necessitate in the case of the Flicker. 
Thus the tongue of a bird seems a very unstable 
character, acted upon quickly and radically by any 
change in the diet of the species. The entire tip of the 
tongue is frequently frayed out into a kind of brush, 
remarkably developed in 
the parrot-like lories. Yet 
this curious structure is 
probably only an elonga- 
tion of the papille, hom- 
ologous with those which 
make the tongue of a cat 
or lion so rough. Cocka- 
toos, although first cousins 
to the lories, have very 
different tongues, thick and 
fleshy with club-shaped 
tips. 
In our common gold- 
finch, the sides of the 
tongue curl inward, form- 
Fic. 97.—Thick fleshy tongue of Cockatoo ing an admirable seed- 
scoop, while the same or- 
gan in the chickadee, being distinctly cleft into sev- 
eral prongs at the tip, has been likened to a “four- 
tined pitchfork” on which its little owner impales the 
myriad grubs and insects for which it so industriously 
searches twigs and leaves. The great particoloured bill 
of a toucan conceals a very curious tongue—a_ long 
