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Show 1868.] DR. J. MURIE ON THE GULAR POUCH OF OTIS. 475 roxysms has been reached. Each day afterwards they lessen, until as July arrives the Bustard has resumed his usual gentle habits. _ lne accession of this most remarkable display occurs chiefly early in the morning or at sundown during the period of excitement; and it is only near the climax that it happens during the middle of the day. At such times the fits succeed each other frequently, as often as every hour. Curiously enough, the companion (Otis australis) which arrived in the same month of 1866, and is supposed also to be a male, has never exhibited any such change in its habits. I should be doing injustice to Prof. Newton's excellent communication did I not specially refer to the circumstance mentioned (ibid. p. 114)-that Mr. J. H. Gurney informed him the late Mr. Frederick Strange had published a notice in an Australian newspaper affirming that the Otis australis possessed a gular pouch. Mr. Strange, then, is entitled to priority of observation; but as regards his statements concerning the organs in question I am, like Prof. Newton, perfectly ignorant of them. Notes on other Bustards.-Before drawing inferences from the facts which I have first related, I shall allude to an examination of two other species of Bustard made by me. One was a Little Bustard (Tetrax campestris), an old male, possessed by the Society, and which died on the 17th September, 1867. No gular pouch was found in this bird. The other, a young male Houbara Bustard (Otis houbara, G m . ) , examined on the 22nd of the same month, exhibited not a trace of a gular sac. The peculiar actions and amorous propensities of the Great Bustard (O. tarda), noticed almost a century ago, and again and again verified by later writers, and no less skilfully depicted by Wolf (Zoological Sketches, vol. i. pl. 45), finds a modified counterpart Tetrax campestris and in Otis australis. Conclusions.-The present anatomical examination of the dim* nutive gular pouch in Otis kori cannot of itself in propriety be adduced as evidence of any ceconomical function to which the sac may be applied. The dissection, however, and observations on the living Australian bird, & c , together with the published accounts of others, concerning the presence and functions, or absence of such an organ, have led m e to the following reflections :- 1. There is nothing in the structure of the gular pouch, in its position, or in the habits of Bustards, so far as I am informed and can judge, which justifies a belief that its use is that of a water-reservoir. I should therefore incline to Naumann's* and Yarrell'sf opinion rather than that of the original discoverer Dr. Douglas £ and some later writers. 2. Its nature &c. equally affords grounds for considering that it is not a residual sac for food; the fact of a trifling quantity of * Naturgesch. der Vogel Deutschl. vii. pp. 20, 21; quoted by Newton Ibis 1862, p. 115. t In a letter to Newton, loc. cit. p. 118. \ Albin, Nat. Hist. Birds, iii. p. 36; also quoted by Newton, /. c. p. 108. in mi- |
