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260 THE WILL IN NATURE.
ant-bear, for instance, is not only armed with long claws
on its fore-feet, in order to break into the nests of the
white ant, but also with a prolonged cylindrical muzzle,
in order to penetrate into them, with a small mouth and a
long, threadlike tongue, covered with a glutinous slime,
which it inserts into the white ants nests and then with
draws covered with the insects that adhere to it : on the
other hand it has no teeth, because it does not want them.
Who can fail to see that the ant-bear s form stands in the
same relation to the white ants, as an act of the will to its
motive ? The contradiction between the powerful fore-feet
and long, strong, curved claws of the ant-bear and its com
plete lack of teeth, is at the same time so extraordinary,
that if the earth ever undergoes a fresh transformation,
the newly arising race of rational beings will find it an
insoluble enigma, if white ants are unknown to them.
The necks of birds, as of quadrupeds, are generally as
long as their legs, to enable them to reach down to the
ground where they pick up their food ; but those of aquatic
birds are often a good deal longer, because they have to
fetch up their nourishment from under the water while
swimming. 1
Moor-fowl have exceedingly long legs, to
enable them to wade without drowning or wetting their
bodies, and a correspondingly long neck and beak, this last
being more or less strong, according to the things (reptiles,
fishes or worms) which have to be crushed ; and the
intestines of these animals are invariably adapted likewise
to this end. On the other hand, moor-fowl are provided
neither with talons, like birds of prey, nor with web-feet,
1 I have seen (Zooplast. Cab. I860) 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.