Identifier: birdlifeguide00chap (find matches)
Title: Bird-life; a guide to the study of our common birds
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Chapman, Frank M. (Frank Michler), 1864-1945 Seton, Ernest Thompson, 1860-1946
Subjects: Birds -- United States
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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rds of their use for other importantservices, and consequently we have a biped which, so faras their assistance goes, is without arms or hands. As aresult, the duties which would naturally fall to thesemembers are performed by the bill, whose chief office,therefore, is that of a hand. Occasionally it is sexually adorned, as in the Puffins,several Auks, Ducks, and the White Pelicans, which,during the nesting season, have some special plate, knob,or color on the bill. With the Woodpeckers it is amusical instrument—the drumstick with which they beata tattoo on some resounding limb. Owls and some otherbirds, when angry or frightened, snap their mandiblestogether like castanets. But it is as a hand that thebill gives best evidence of adaptation to or by habit.Among families in which the wings, tail, and feet areessentially alike in form, the bill may present great vari-ation—proof apparently of its response to the demandsmade upon it. All birds use it as a comb and brush ^vith which to
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Plate IX. Page 97. WILSONS SNIPE.Length, 11-25 inches. Upper parts black, buff, and rusty; throat and bellywhite, rest of under parts black and buflf. FORM AXD HABIT: THE BILL. 31 le perform their toilet, and, pressing a drop of oil from tlgland at the root of the tail, they dress their featherswith their bill. Parrots use the bill in chmbing, andits hawklike shape in these birds is an mmsnal instanceof similarity in stnicture accompanying different habits. Birds which do not strike with their feet may usethe bill as a weapon, but the manner in which it is em-ployed corresponds so closely with the method by whicha bird secures its food, that as a weapon the bill pre-sents no special modifications. In constructing the nestthe bill may be used as a trowel, an auger, a needle, achisel, and as several other tools. But as a hand the bills most important office is thatof procuring food; and wonderful indeed are the formsit assumes to supply the appetites of birds who mayrequire a drop of ne

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