,')(') NATURE STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 



To the Editor of Nature Study. 



At an ornithological lecture which I attended in Boston on Saturday, 



March 4, the lecturer told us that the tongue of the nicker is barbed, be- 

 ing adapted for impaling ants upon which he feeds. 



This statement is contrary to what I have been taught. Is it true r 



An Interested Listener. 



The statement that the tongue of the flicker is barbed is not true in 

 the sense which we usually understand the term when applied to the 

 tongues of the woodpeckers. The tip of the tongue of this species is 

 rounded and thus quite blunt, wholly precluding the power of impaling 

 anything of the small size and hardness of an ant. To be sure, there are 

 a few rudimentary barbs, or bristles, on the sides of the tongue near its 

 termination, but these can be of little or no use to the woodpecker in 

 feeding. 



The ants which it eats in summer are really taken up on the termi- 

 nal half of the tongue by the adhesiveness of a kind of mucilaginous coat- 

 ing with which the tongue is covered. 



For further notes upon the tongue and methods of feeding of wood- 

 peckers, we refer you to an article upon this subject in the April number 

 of " Nature Study" 



Fig. 27. 



Head of Northern Shrike. 



