OCR Text |
Show 1879.] TRACHEA OF THE GALLING. 365 last two tracheal rings and the first two bronchial semirings peculiar to them. Their direct front view always exhibits the posterior articulation of the first bronchial semiring with the ring above and the semiring below, as in no other Gallinaceous bird with which I am acquainted; thus, it includes the whole of the considerable interannular intervals between them, the upper ovoid, the lower semi-ovoid, with its convexity downwards. In Phasianus there is uo interval between the penultimate and last tracheal rings, nor any of importance higher up. In P. colchicus, however, above the ante- Fig. 13. Fig. 14. penultimate ring, there are small median intervals, fusiform and elongate in front, minute behind. These shortly become the notches of the interlocking superior rings. Pucrasia darwini is so like the genus Phasianus, as far as the parts under consideration are concerned, that it needs no separate description. Any difference is in the direction of Euplocamus, the sides of the last tracheal ring being slightly uptilted. Returning to Euplocamus, a start in another direction brings us to Thaumalea, T. picta and T. amherstice being identical, as far as their windpipes are concerned. In this genus the intrathoracic rings (tracheal rings) are in contact all round, as far as and including the penultimate ring, which sends down a short median anterior process to articulate with a small corresponding upward-directed one from the upper margin of the last ring. Posteriorly, in the young bird, the blunted triangular extremity of the pessulus interpolates itself between the two slightly expanded ends of this (therefore imperfect) ring, its extremity meeting and even disrupting |