But a queer thing about their bills, besides the funny-way they have of crooking down all of a sudden, is that the upper bill is smaller and fits down into the lower. Stranger still, the birds can raise and lower this upper bill like the cover of a coffee-pot.
They can move the under bill a little, too, but not to amount to anything; so you see there was even more to the upside-downness of that bill than there seemed to be at first. The whole arrangement looks odd to us, but it works out beautifully for the birds. When they turn their heads upside down they can stir the ooze to various depths, as required, by using the upper bill as a ploughshare and setting it at different angles.
Although they've borrowed some ideas from both the goose and the heron families, the flamingoes are so different from either they are put into a family by themselves, the Phœnicopteridæ. This family name is from two Greek words meaning "red-winged." If you want to be formal in speaking of or to a goose you must refer to her family as the Anserinæ which is Latin for "geese."
WHERE THE FLAMINGO KEEPS ITS TEETH
While teeth, like those of the Hesperornis, went out of fashion ages ago, the flamingoes have substitutes for teeth which answer their purposes much better. They have little horny spines on their bills and on their tongues. These spines serve as fences to prevent the escape of the minute creatures which the flamingo scoops up with its bill. You notice the spines on the tongue are pointed backward toward the throat; and that's a help—to the flamingo, I mean, for once on that tongue there's no turning back.
[A LATE BIRD, BUT HE GETS THE WORM]
Another of the long-nosed earth workers, as curious in his make-up as the flamingoes, is the kiwi of New Zealand. Like the flamingo, the kiwi uses his queer bill to get his living out of the soil. You've heard the saying "it's the early bird that gets the worm"; but while this is true of most birds it doesn't apply to the kiwis. Although they live on worms, as does Mr. Early Bird of the proverb, they do their feeding by night.
And such a funny thing for a bird to do, the kiwis go about with their noses to the ground like a dog smelling after a rat. The reason they do this is that their nostrils are situated, not next to their heads, as in most birds, but at the end of the bill—and on purpose; for they locate their suppers, the worms in the earth, by the sense of smell, although most birds have a very poor sense of smell. Just after sunset, you'll see the kiwis moving about softly (as if they were afraid of scaring away the worms!), and with the tips of their bills against the ground.