Page:Bird-lore Vol 01.djvu/237

 Concerning Birds' Tongues for spearing grubs in their burrows or coaxing ants out of their nests, the tips are peculiarly modified, as well as the hindmost part of the tongue. In such active grub-hunting birds as the Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers the tongue tip is made into a many-barbed spear, for all the world like the spears and arrrows in use among tha natives of the Solomon Islands. The Flicker, on the other hand, which uses its tongue like a probe, has only one or two little barbs, at the very tip, and relies mainly on gluing ants and other small game to his tongue ^^ by the very viscid saliva secreted by the large salivary glands. |f| All Woodpeckers, however, with which we are acquainted a/ | have the upper surface of the tongue thickly beset with minute, horny points, directed backward. The Sap-sucker has no barbs on the tip of the tongue, but instead a little brush ; moreover, this bird has the shortest, least extensible tongue of all Woodpeckers, and must long ago have given up spear- ing grubs for a living. It is something of a question whether the little brush is used for swabbing up sap, or whether it serves to direct the sap from the little pits where it ac- cumulates into the bird's mouth. The former use seems the most probable, as those who have watched the Sap-suckers closel)'^ tell us that the tongue is moved rapidly backward and forward. From what has just been said, it can readily be seen that ^he brush among Woodpeckers, the relations between food and tongue of the, J 1 , , 1 , SAP-SUCKER are very clear, and we may be pretty sure that whenever we come upon an odd-appearing tongue there is, did we but know it, some trick of taking or manipulating food to account for it. And it is suggested that the readers of Bird-Lore improve every oppor- tunity to carefully observe the manner in which even the commonest birds take their food, in order to throw all possible light upon the reasons for the many shapes of birds' tongues.