August, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
353 
TONGUE OF ANT-EATING BIRD 
H AVE you ever noticed a flicker eat 
ants. One morning last summer 
I happened upon a young flicker, 
or golden-winged woodpecker, to give 
him a more descriptive name, clinging 
to the trunk of an elm tree. He had 
not been out of the nest very long, and 
was just learning to take care of him- 
self. Though frightened at my ap- 
proach he was even more afraid to loose 
his grip on the tree and to attempt 
flight. Holding himself motionless, he 
watched me with his bright eye. To 
reassure him I stood perfectly still. 
After a minute or more of immo- 
bility on the part of each of us, he 
evidently made up his mind that I did 
not intend to harm him. He moved his 
head a little, thrust out his tongue, and 
licked the elm bark. Looking to see 
what he was eating I noticed a num- 
ber of tiny ants running up and down 
the tree trunk. On these ants the 
woodpecker was feeding. As he clung 
to the tree with his widely spreading 
claws, and propped by his stiff tail, 
he was just about on a level with my 
head and not 
more than two 
feet from my 
eyes. So I had 
a good chance to 
watch his man- 
ner of catching 
his breakfast. 
He ran out his 
long tongue, 
stretching it more 
than two inches, 
I estimated, be- 
yond the tip of his 
bill. A queer 
tongue it was, 
round and soft 
and a good deal 
like an angleworm 
in a p p e a ranee, 
but pointed at the 
tip and barbed 
with short hairs. 
He darted it out 
and drew it back 
as if it were a 
spear, but I saw 
at once that he 
was not really 
spearing the ants, 
but licking them 
up. The flicker’s 
worm-like tongue 
is covered with a sticky secre- 
tion, and this, rather than the hair-like 
barbs, holds the little ants fast. Some 
woodpeckers do actually spear their 
food, excavating holes in tree trunks, 
thrusting in their long, barbed tongues 
and impaling the grubs and eggs of 
tree-boring insects. The little black 
and white downy and his big cousin. 
the hairy woodpecker, work in that 
manner. But the young flicker’s tongue 
was not very strongly barbed, and he 
evidently depended on the sticky sa- 
liva that covered it to secure and hold 
his prey. 
For several minutes I watched him 
at his hunting. He grew used to my 
presence and changed his position a 
little now and then, searching with 
his bright eyes for the ants, and hitch- 
ing an inch or two up or down or to 
one side to reach them, while he darted 
out and swiftly drew in that wonder- 
ful long tongue. Where in the world 
did he keep it when his bill was closed, 
I wonder. Only a student of bird an- 
atomy can answer that question exactly. 
Of course, the long tongue is very 
flexible, and, somewhere within the 
golden wing’s bill and skull the slender, 
delicate, bony rods with their sheaths 
of elastic muscle and skin, coiled or 
curved to take up the least possible 
space, find a secure hiding place. We 
can rest assured that they are well pro- 
tected, for a disabled tongue might eas- 
ily mean starvation to a woodpecker. 
Of course you have noticed flickers 
hitching up and down tree trunks or 
moving clumsily over the ground dig- 
ging their long bills down into ant 
hills. You know that ants furnish a 
large part of their food, though they 
are supposed to eat other insects and 
worms as well. But if you have never 
had a chance to watch closely the way 
they secure their prey, you cannot rea- 
lize what truly marvelous instruments 
or weapons their tongues are. Don't 
fail to watch a flicker, or any other 
variety of woodpecker hunting, the first 
time you have an opportunity, and get 
a good look at his tongue if you can. 
To see it and observe the way the bird 
uses it is well worth a little trouble 
and patience. 
E. C. Brill. 
LONG ISLAND KILDEER AGAIN 
I NOTICED in the article on kildeer 
by J. T. Nichols, March issue, that 
he states that kildeer nest on Hemp- 
stead reservoir. This I do not believe 
to be so, as during the last six years, 
during which I fished in Hempstead 
reservoir and ponds below every Sat- 
urday and Sunday and two or three 
evenings a week after work, from the 
first of April until the opening of the 
snipe season, I have yet to see a kildeer 
there during the nesting season, al- 
though I have often noticed them in 
March and on the fall flight. 
As regards kildeer wintering here, 
during the winter of 1918-1919, while 
trap ping on a 
brook flowing 
through the farm- 
land near Valley 
Stream a kildeer 
lived along this 
brook and adja- 
cent turnip fields 
from the opening 
of the trapping 
season, November 
10, at that time, 
when I first saw 
him, until late in 
March, when he 
disappeared. 
On a farm at 
the edge of the 
meadows below 
East New York 
last August I saw 
many kildeer on 
the farmland 
feeding with 
small flocks of 
r i n g n e cks and 
frost snipe. 
The last snipe 
season on Long 
Island was fairly 
good, especially 
the first day, 
when two com- 
panions and I shot the limit on yellow- 
legs in two hours’ shooting. 
Plover were scarce as usual; the only 
ones I saw were a blacl^-belly, killed at 
Seaford by a friend, in September, and 
one I found dead at Long Beach. 
Rabbits on Long Island this past sea- 
son were decidedly scarce and gunners 
l CONTINUED ON PAGE 379) 
'V 
Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History. 
A Killdeer Plover sitting on her nest 
