CHAPTER X 
BEAKS AND BILLS 
=I a man’s hands and arms tightly behind his 
| back, stand him on his feet, and tell him that 
he must hereafter find and prepare his food, 
build his house, defend himself from his enemies and 
perform all the business of life in such a position, and 
what a pitiable object he would present! Yet this is not 
unlike what birds have to do. As we have seen, almost 
every form of vegetable and animal life is used as food 
by one or another of the species. Birds have most. in- 
tricately built homes, and their methods of defence are 
to be numbered by the score; the care of their delicate 
plumage alone would seem to necessitate many and varied 
instruments: yet all this is made possible, and chiefly 
executed, by one small portion of the bird—its bill or 
beak. 
If one will spend an afternoon at a zoological park, 
or with any good collection of live birds, watching the 
ways in which the bills of the various species are used, 
one will not boast of his own accomplishments, when 
it is realized how much more, comparatively, the bird is 
able to achieve with the aid of two projecting pieces of 
horn. 
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