hole he once had.

"Did you ever notice," says he, "that the high-hole never eats anything
that he cannot pick up with his tongue? At least this was the case with
a young one I took from the nest and tamed. He could thrust out his
tongue two or three inches, and it was amusing to see his efforts to
eat currants from the hand. He would run out his tongue and try to
stick it to the currant; failing in that, he would bend his tongue
around it like a hook and try to raise it by a sudden jerk. But he
never succeeded, the round fruit would roll and slip away every time.
He never seemed to think of taking it in his beak. His tongue was in
constant use to find out the nature of everything he saw; a nail-hole
in a board or any similar hole was carefully explored. If he was held
near the face he would soon be attracted by the eye and thrust his
tongue into it. In this way he gained the respect of a number of half-
grown cats that were around the house. I wished to make them familiar
to each other, so there would be less danger of their killing him. So I
would take them both on my knee, when the bird would soon notice the
kitten's eyes, and, leveling his bill as carefully as a marksman levels
his rifle, he would remain so a minute, when he would dart his tongue
into the cat's eye. This was held by the cats to be very mysterious:
being struck in the eye by something invisible to them. They soon
acquired such a terror of him that they would avoid him and run away
whenever they saw his bill turned in their direction. He never would
swallow a grasshopper even when it was placed in his throat; he would
shake himself until he had thrown it out of his mouth. His 'best hold'
was ants. He never was surprised at anything, and never was afraid of
anything. He would drive the turkey gobbler and the rooster. He would
advance upon them holding one wing up as high as possible, as if to
strike with it, and shuffle along the ground toward them, scolding all