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American and Asiatic species; and it thus becomes a valuable character indicating the radical distinctness of the two groups, a distinctness confirmed by other anatomical characters.

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On the other hand, peculiarities of organization which seem specially adapted to certain modes of life, are often diminished or altogether lost in a few species of the group, showing their essential unimportance to the type, as well as their small value for classification. Thus, the woodpeckers are most strikingly characterised by a very long and highly extensible tongue, with the muscles attached to the tongue-bone prolonged backward over the head so as to enable the tongue to be suddenly darted out; and also by the rigid and pointed tail which is a great help in climbing up the vertical trunks of But in one group (the Picumni), the tail becomes quite soft, while the tongue remains fully developed ; and in another (Meiglyptes) the characteristic tail remains, while the prolonged hyoid muscles have almost entirely disappeared, and the tongue has consequently lost its peculiar extensile power; yet in both these cases the form of the breast-bone and the character of the feet, the skeleton, and the plumage, show that the birds are really woodpeckers; while even the habits and the food are very little altered. In like manner the bill may undergo great changes; as from the short crow-like bill of the true birds-of-paradise to the long slender bills of Epimachinæ, which latter were on that account long classed apart in the tribe of Tenuirostres, or slenderbilled birds, but whose entire structure shows them to be closely allied to the paradise-birds. So, the long feathery tongue of the toucans differs from that of every

other bird; yet it is not held to overbalance the weight of anatomical peculiarities which show that these birds are allied to the barbets and the cuckoos.

The skeleton, therefore, and especially the sternum or breast-bone, affords us an almost infallible guide in doubtful cases; because it appears to change its form with extreme slowness, and thus indicates deeper-seated affinities than those shown by organs which are in direct connection with the outside world, and are readily modified in accordance with varying conditions of existence. Another, though less valuable guide is afforded, in the case of birds, by the eggs. These often have a characteristic form and colour, and a peculiar texture of surface, running unchanged through whole genera and families which are nearly related to each other, however much they may differ in outward form and habits. Another detail of structure which has no direct connection with habits and economy, is the manner in which the plumage is arranged on the body. The feathers of birds are by no means set uniformly over their skin, but grow in certain definite lines and patches, which vary considerably in shape and size in the more important orders and tribes, while the mode of arrangement agrees in all which are known to be closely related to each other; and thus the form of the feathertracts or the "pterylography" as it is termed, of a bird, is a valuable aid in doubtful cases of affinity.

Now, if we apply these three tests to the hummingbirds, we find them all pointing in the same direction. The sternum or breast-bone is not notched behind; and this agrees with the swifts, and not with the sun-birds, whose sternum has two deep notches behind, as in all

the families of the vast order of Passeres to which the latter belong. The eggs of both swifts and hummingbirds are white, only two in number, and resembling each other in texture. And in the arrangement of the feather-tracts the humming-birds approach more nearly to the swifts than they do to any other birds; and altogether differ from the sun-birds, which, in this respect as in so many others, resemble the honey-suckers of Australia and other true passerine birds.

Resemblances of Swifts and Humming-birds.-Having this clue to their affinities, we shall find other peculiarities common to these two groups, the swifts and the humming-birds. They have both ten tail-feathers, while the sun-birds have twelve. They have both only sixteen true quill-feathers, and they are the only birds which have so small a number. The humming-birds are remarkable for having, in almost all the species, the first quill the longest of all, the only other birds resembling them in this respect being a few species of swifts; and, lastly, in both groups the plumage is remarkably compact and closely pressed to the body. Yet, with all these points of agreement, we find an extreme diversity in the bills and tongues of the two groups. The swifts have a short, broad, flat bill, with a flat horny-tipped tongue of the usual character; while the humming-birds have a very long, narrow, almost cylindrical bill, containing a tubular and highly extensible tongue. The essential point however is, that whereas hardly any of the other characters we have adduced are adaptive, or strictly correlated with habits and economy, this character is pre-eminently so; for the swifts are pure aërial insect-hunters, and their short,

broad bills, and wide gape, are essential to their mode of life. The humming-birds, on the other hand, are floral insect-hunters, and for this purpose their peculiarly long bills and extensile tongues are especially adapted; while they are at the same time honey-suckers, and for this purpose have acquired the tubular tongue. The formation of such a tubular tongue out of one of the ordinary kind is easily conceivable, as it only requires to be lengthened, and the two lamina of which it is composed curled in at the sides; and these changes it probably goes through in the young birds.

When on the Amazon I once had a nest brought me containing two little unfledged humming-birds, apparently not long hatched. Their beaks were not at all like those of their parents, but short, triangular, and broad at the base; just the form of the beak of a swallow or swift slightly lengthened. Thinking (erroneously) that the young birds were fed by their parents on honey, I tried to feed them with a syrup made of honey and water, but though they kept their mouths constantly open as if ravenously hungry, they would not swallow the liquid, but threw it out again and sometimes nearly choked themselves in the effort. At length I caught some minute flies, and on dropping one of these into the open mouth it instantly closed, the fly was gulped down and the mouth opened again for more; and each took in this way fifteen or twenty little flies in succession before it was satisfied. They lived thus three or four days, but required more constant care than I could give them. These little birds were in the "swift" stage; they were pure insect-eaters, with a bill and mouth adapted for insect-eating only. At that time I was not

aware of the importance of the observation of the tongue; but as the bill was so short and the tubular tongue not required, there can be little doubt that the organ was, at that early stage of growth, short and flat, as it is in the birds most nearly allied to them.

Differences between Sun-birds and Humming-birds. -In respect of all the essential and deep-seated points of structure, which have been shown to offer such remarkable similarities between the swifts and the humming-birds, the sun-birds of the Eastern hemisphere differ totally from the latter, while they agree with the passerine birds generally, or more particularly with the creepers and honey-suckers. They have a deeply-notched sternum; they have twelve tail-feathers in place of ten; they have nineteen quills in place of sixteen; and the first quill instead of being the longest is the very shortest of all, while the wings are short and round, instead of being excessively long and pointed; their plumage is arranged differently; and their feet are long and strong, instead of being excessively short and weak. There remain only the superficial characters of small size and brilliant metallic colours to assimilate them with the humming-birds, and one structural feature-a tubular and somewhat extensile tongue. This, however, is a strictly adaptive character, the sun-birds feeding on small insects and the nectar of flowers, just as do the humming-birds; and it is a remarkable instance of a highly peculiar modification of an organ occurring independently in two widely-separate groups. In the sun-birds the hyoid or tongue-muscles do not extend so completely over the head as they do in the humming-birds, so

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