72 
POPULAR HISTORY OE BIRDS. 
are of considerable size^ are covered by a cartilaginous scale. 
The tongue in most of the species ends in a pencil of hairs^ 
the better to enable them to get at their food. 
One species of this family, with long yellow wattles, like 
ear-drops, on the head behind the eye {Anthockcem inauris)^ 
is very abundant in Van Diemen^s Land, and hundreds are 
annually shot and sent to Hobart Town market for the table. 
Mr. Gould says that it is highly prized as an article of food^ 
and so much nutriment must it derive from the honey and 
pollen of the Eucalypti, its chief food, that in winter it be- 
comes enveloped in fat ; as much as a teacupful of oil may 
be obtained from two of these birds, and as the oil gives a 
better light, it is sometimes used in place of candles. The 
long tongue, with its brush-like tip, is well suited to aid 
it in procuring its food, which it gets in great profusion 
from the various species of Eucalypti^ the newly-opened 
flowers of which appear with every rising sun throughout 
the year.''^ It must be a very animated sight to see thirty 
or forty of these birds on one tree, hanging and clinging to 
the branches in every possible variety of position, and dis- 
playing their long graduated tails, the feathers of v/hich are 
tipped with white. The presence of another species of this 
genus, the Brush Wattle-bird {Anthochcera mellivora), is a 
