184 



PINE GROSBEAK. 



then of an oblong shape, when viewed from above, deeply concave, with 

 two flattened prominences at the base, the point rounded and thin, the back 

 or lower surface convex. This remarkable structure of the tongue appears 

 to be intended for the purpose of enabling the bird, when it has insinuated 

 its bill between the scales of a strobilus, to lay hold of the seed by pressing 

 it against the roof of the mandible. In the Crossbills, the tongue is nearly 

 of the same form, but more slender, and these birds feed in the same manner, 

 in so far as regards the prehension of the food. In the present species, the 

 tongue is much strengthened by the peculiar form of the basi-hyoid bone, to 

 which there is appended as it were above a thin longitudinal crest, giving it 

 great firmness in the perpendicular movements of the organ. The oesophagus 

 abed, Fig. 1, is two inches 11 twelfths long, dilated on the middle of the 

 neck so as to form a kind of elongated dimidiate crop, 4 twelfths of an inch 

 in diameter, projecting to the right side, and with the trachea passing along 

 that side of the vertebras. The proventriculus c, is 8 twelfths long, some- 

 what bulbiform, with numerous oblong glandules, its greatest diameter 4| 

 twelfths. A very curious peculiarity of the stomach e, is, that in place of 



Fie. 1. 



Fie. 2/ 



