160 
INTRODUCTION. 
will be found in some way adapted to secure the 
peculiar insects which may afford them sustenance. 
The Hoopoe is an example among our native birds, 
while the Cornish Chough will furnish another still 
more striking ; for in fact the bill of Melithreptus 
is almost a model of that of Pyrracorax, both of 
them entire, finely attenuated, and much curved ; 
and Montague speaks of tlio aptness and facility 
with winch our native bird could procure minute 
objects. We do not mean by these remarks to 
insist that the Sun-birds are not partially meli- 
phagous, because we know the contrary ; but we 
think that their fine colouring, and habitation amidst 
sweets and beautiful blossoms, have been too much 
associated with delicacy of food as a cause of the 
former, and have given, as it were, a poetical licence 
to their describers. 
Vaillant, considering the sweet juices of plants 
to be the sole food of the Sun-birds, looks at 
the tongue only as a member for collecting honey. 
He describes it, exteriorly, of a horny substance, 
hollowed, and forming a kind of tube, of which 
the anterior extremity is supplied with many nerv- 
ous threads, forming the seat of taste, and also 
serving as a kind of sieve to prevent the grosser 
matters to pass ; while the horns of the hyoid 
bone, being lengthened, pass over the skull and serve 
as the same parts in the Woodpecker, to dart out 
or protrude the tongue for the purpose of reaching 
support, whether vegetable or animal, which is con- 
cealed in the deep tubes or corollas of many gorge- 
