218 LONG-SNOUTED TARSIPES.

at leisure, sitting tolerably erect and holding the fly
between its fore-paws, and always rejecting the head, wings,
and legs. The artificial food given it was sopped bread,
made very sweet with sugar, into which it inserted its
long tongue, precisely in the way in which the honey-
eaters among birds do theirs into the flower-cups for
honey; every morning the sop was completely honey-
combed, as it were, from the moisture having been drained
from it by the repeated insertion of the tongue: a little
moistened sugar on the end of the finger would attract
it from one part of the cage to the other; and by this
means an opportunity may be readily obtained for
observing the beautifol prehensile structure of the tongue,
which I have frequently seen protruded for nearly an
inch beyond the nose.”