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Show 1868.] DR. J. M U R I E O N T H E G U L A R P O U C H OF OTIS. 473 ture, and, like it, of a dark colour. The mucous surface of the floor of the mouth under the tongue and between the rami of the lower mandible had a linear median row of small glandular openings (some dozen in number) in its middle. And laterally, or nearer the mandibular bones, were more numerous irregularly placed minute puncta, likewise the apertures of secreting crypts, glandulce sublinguales. The interior of the gular pouch, however, was free from any such follicles. The only other point worthy of mentioning, in immediate connexion with the structure of the gular pouch, is the questionable occurrence of a special sphincter muscle for closing its aperture. According to m y dissection of the parts which fig. 1 illustrates, the hinder portion of the sac is devoid of any appreciable muscular envelope, and appears only covered by the skin and subcutaneous tissue. In front of this, and situated at what may be considered the neck of the pouch, a delicate layer of somewhat transverse muscular fibres passed across and backwards (see fig. 1, Pm.). This film of muscle doubtless represents an anterior portion of the so-called platysma myoides of Mammalia; or it may be part of the constrictor colli found by Prof. Owen* in the Apteryx, if not the true platysma, also present in that bird. Habits and Inferences.-Concerning the habits of this specimen of Burchell's Bustard, Mr. Bartlett, our Superintendent, and the keeper, George Misselbrook, who have had more opportunity of watching the bird while alive than I, related to me the following memoranda. That they had never heard it utter any note; that on no occasion had it been seen to inflate or dilate the throat in the manner often witnessed in the common Bustard; that as regards disposition it appeared remarkably quiet and inoffensive, living in perfect harmony with the other birds in the same enclosure. The points of importance elucidated from dissection and the observations on the living bird resolve themselves into these three :- 1. It would seem that some specimens of Burchell's Bustard (O. kori) possess a "gular pouch" identical in position and structure with that of the Great Bustard (O. tarda). 2. This sac in the young African male bird in question is very small compared with what other observers have found in the European species of the same genus. 3. The noiseless manner of the bird and want of inflation of this throat-pouch may respectively be dependent on the age or attributed to the absence of sexual desires. Pouch in the living O. australis.-My attention having thus specially been called to the Bustard's curious gular pouch through the examination of the above specimen, I was naturally the more pleased to find what I think may be termed an exaggerated example of this organ in the Australian Bustard. A male specimen of Otis australis, Gray, was received from the Acclimatization Society of Sydney in April 1866. During the same month a second supposed male Australian Bustard was purchased. * Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. iii. pp. 278-279. |