Note 225 — ON THE WILL IN NATURE. [190] (continued 2)

I have seen (Zooplast. Cab. 1860) a humming-bird (colibri) with a beak as long as the whole bird, head and tail included. This bird must certainly have had to fetch out its food from a considerable depth, were it only from the calyx of a flower (Cuvier, "Anat. Comp." vol. iv. p. 374); otherwise it would not have given itself the luxury, or submitted to the encumbrance, of such a beak.