70 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OP BIRDS. 
truly magnificent bird the Ptiloris paraduea of New 
Holland ; but it is only among the scansorial creepers 
that we find this structure in its highest stage of deve- 
lopment. The common creeper, Certhia familiaris, 
and the hoopoe, are the only native examples we have ; 
but the forests of Brazil are the peculiar regions of the 
genus DendrocolaptHU, one of which, the D. procxirvis, 
has the bill so long and so much curved, that it can 
only be compared to the blade of a sickle. We never 
were fortunate enough to meet with this bird, which 
is particularly rare, and confined to certain locahties; so 
that its peculiar habits have never been investigated : it 
would be also interesting to know the structure of its 
tongue. In several other tree-creepers of South Ame- 
rica, closely allied to the last, the tongue is quite as 
long as the bill, and even longer, while its tip, being 
horny and sharp, leads us to infer that it is used to 
transfix such small insects as are passed over by the 
more powerfully constructed woodpeckers. 
(65.) IV. Spatulate bills are confined to one genus 
only, that of Plataka, known by the common name of 
spoonbills. However anomalous this form may appear, 
it is but a singular modification of the depressed shape 
belonging to all the fissirostral types of birds, engrafted, 
as it were, on the elongated bill of the herons, and ana- 
logous to the ducks, the boatbUls, and other modifica- 
tions of the same type. Little or nothing appears to be 
known of the habits of these birds, or what peculiar 
functions this singular-shaped bill is intended to per- 
form ; we cannot therefore illustrate its history. 
(66.) V. A Recurved bill is one of the most remark- 
able deviations from the ordinary form of this member, 
all other bills being either straight or curved downward; 
but in this the point is bent upwards. There is an in- 
clination to assume this form in some of the tree-creepers, 
as in the genus Sitella, among the nuthatches, and still 
more in Zenopg, a genus of the Brazilian creepers; 
nevertheless, although the ridge or gonys of the under 
mandible, in these examples, is inclined upwards, the 
