The proboscis of the humming-bird.
The tongue of the humming-bird is really a proboscis, and a very curious one it is too. It has two tubes alongside of each other, like the two barrels of a double-barreled gun. At the tip of the tongue these tubes are a little separated, and their ends are shaped like spoons. The honey is spooned up, as we may say, and then it is drawn into the mouth through the long tubes of the tongue. But the bird uses its tongue in another way. It catches insects with it, for it lives on these as well as on honey. It does it in this way: the two spoons grasp the insect like a pair of tongs, and the tongue, bending, puts it into the bird’s mouth. The tongue, then, of the humming-bird is not merely one instrument, but it contains several instruments together—two pumps, two spoons, and a pair of tongs.
Cat’s tongue a curry-comb.
The tongue of a cat is a singular instrument. It is her curry-comb. For this purpose it is rough, as you will find if you feel it. When she cleans herself so industriously, she gets off the dirt and smooths her coat just as the hostler cleans and smooths the horse’s coat with the curry-comb. Her head she can not reach with her tongue, and so she has to make her fore paws answer the purpose instead.
How the heron catches fish.
There are some birds that live on fishes. They have instruments, therefore, purposely for catching them. The heron is a bird of this kind. He manages in this way: when the light is dim, either at dawn or when there is moonlight, it is his time for going a fishing. He will stand, as you see him here, in shallow water, so stiff and so still that he might be mistaken for a stump of a tree or something else. He is looking steadily and patiently down into the water, and the moment a fish comes along, down goes his sharp bill, and off he flies to his nest with his prey. The plumes of this singular bird are beautiful, and are very highly prized as ornaments.
There is one bird that lives chiefly on oysters. It has a bill, therefore, with which it can open an oyster-shell as skillfully as an oysterman can with his knife.
The tailor-bird.