SYSTEM OF NATURE. 
47 
can find access; they are remarkable for boldness, yet 
wariness, — for confidence mingled with distrust; they are 
for ever intruding, yet for ever on the watch ; they are of 
small size, of infinite number, and of varied form ; they 
are merry, active and playful. Possessing characters in 
every respect similar are the sparrow tribe : —who is there 
that has not compared the sparrow to the mouse ? — the 
jay and the magpie are analogues of the squirrel. The 
sparrow tribe, therefore, are the Glires among birds : these 
are preeminently perching and leaping birds. 
5thly. The Repentia or Ant-eaters. Their food is ex¬ 
clusively insects, almost exclusively ants : they are mostly 
without teeth : they wander over the plains in search of 
ants’ nests : when they have found one, they tear it open 
with their strong claws : the ants, alarmed at the intrusion, 
rush to the breach, and cover it as with a living mantle ; 
the long extensible tongue of the animal, covered with 
viscid slime, is then thrust out, and not withdrawn until it 
is covered with the living prey. In Echidna, the marsu¬ 
pial analogue, “ the tongue is slender and very long, and 
the animal has the power of protruding it to a considerable 
distance; * * * it lives upon insects, which, 
like the ant-eaters, it procures by means of its long slen¬ 
der tongue, which is always covered with a viscous matter.”* 
This is exactly the case with the woodpecker : its food is 
the same; its manner of obtaining it the same. I have 
watched the common green woodpecker scratching away 
at the ant-hills, and when the industrious little insects 
were duly excited it would thrust its tongue into the living 
multitude : the tongue is in all respects similar to that of 
* Waterh. Mars. 304 and 306. 
