﻿EXTERNAL ANATOMY. BILL. 



69 



work, are covered with as many splinters and chips as 

 would be found in a carpenter's shop.* The student 

 must not look for the full development of this struc- 

 ture in our common green woodpecker (Chrysopterus 

 viridis Sw.), which belongs to a different genus ; but 

 he will find them in the greater and lesser spotted 

 species. The nuthatches (c), which connect the wood- 

 peckers with the creepers, show the only near approach 

 to this form which we yet know of. We have said that 

 the maccaws have the strongest bills of any birds ; but 

 it is, in truth, exceedingly difficult to award that dis- 

 tinction justly, seeing that strength is distributed under 

 so many shapes and ways, suited to the habits of the 

 birds, and to the particular functions which the bill is 

 to perform. Equally difficult is it to apply, with strict 

 propriety, the epithets of small and great ; for, although 

 the goatsucker's bill, in point of real size, is by far the 

 smallest, yet that of the ostrich, in proportion to the 

 dimensions of the bird, is very considerably smaller. 



(64.) III. Falcate, or sword-shaped bills, are those 

 which have both mandibles more or less curved, so as 

 to assume the figure of a sword with the point turned 

 downwards. These bills are almost always greatly 

 lengthened, and from their peculiar shape, no less than 

 from their great compression, are generally weak. The 

 first indication of this form may be seen in the outline 

 of the toucan's bill, the under piece of which curves 

 downwards in the same direction as the upper. The 

 hornbills make another advance, and the bills of many 

 of the species would come under this denomination but 

 for the additional protuberances which rise from them. 

 Some of the long-legged thrushes (Crateropodinai) show 

 an obvious tendency the same way, as do also many 

 of the honey-suckers in the families of Trochilida 

 and Cinny rides. The ibis and the curlew, among the 

 waders, have their bills decidedly falcate, and the same 

 may be said of many of the promerops, and of that 



* See Wilson's Ornithology, article Ivory-billed Woodpecker. 

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