CHAPTER V 
BIRDS WITH QUEER BEAKS 
LTHOUGH birds lack the mobile features 
common to many of the mammalian 
members of creation, yet they possess in the 
bill or beak an organ which endows them 
with a considerable degree of character. 
In this country there are quite a number 
of birds that have curious forms of beaks, 
but it is in foreign climes that the more extra¬ 
ordinary examples occur, some of them pos¬ 
sessing such peculiar bills as to render their 
owners almost grotesque in appearance. 
In past ages certain birds possessed teeth, 
but at the present day none is thus endowed. 
With many young birds, however, a so-called 
“ egg-tooth ” is present, this being a small, 
pimple-like and hard outgrowth of the bill 
which is utilized by the unhatched chick to 
break its way from out of the egg, and after¬ 
wards shed. 
Nearly all birds possess an external covering 
of horn to the beak, but the ducks and 
77 
