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 ; hut 
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 
tile maccaws have the strongest hills 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.) 1 1 1 . Falcate, or swnrd-shajied bills, are those 
which have both mandibles more or less curved, so as 
to assume the figure of a sword with the point turned 
tlownwards. These bills are almost always greatly 
lengthened, and from their peculiar shape, no less than 
from their great compression, are generally weak. ’I’he 
first indication of this fonn may lie 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 {Cmieropndinai) show 
an obvious tendency the same way, as do also many 
of the honey-suckers in the families of Trochilidai 
and Cinnyridm. The ibis and the curlew, among the 
Waders, have their bills decidedly falcate, and the same 
niay be said of many of the promerops, and of that 
* See Wilson’s OrnitlioloKy, article Ivory-biUed Woodpecker. 
F 3 
