OCR Text |
Show 1875.] ON THE TRACHEA IN STORKS AND SPOONBILLS. 297 3. On the Form of the Trachea in certain Species of Storks and Spoonbills. By A. H. GARROD, B.A., F.Z.S., Prosector to the Society. [Received March 15, 1875.] No account of the peculiarities of the windpipe in Tantalus ibis and in Platalea ajaja has yet, to the best of m y knowledge, appeared in print. They cannot but interest ornithologists ; I therefore append descriptions of them from specimens which have passed through my hands as Prosector to the Society. In the Transactions of the Linnean Society * there is a paper by Mr. Joshua Brookes, F.R.S., " On the remarkable Formation of the Trachea in the Egyptian Tantalus." The author does not mention the sex of his specimen, and does not refer to the existence of any intrathoracic or any other loops ; he draws attention only to the existence of a lateral compression of the portion of the trachea which is contained within the thorax; and he incidentally refers to the similarity of the arrangement of the windpipe in the Spoonbill and Tantalus ibis, but does not hint at the points in which they agree. In most species of Ciconiidse the only peculiarity of the windpipe is that the bronchi are longer than in other birds, the bifurcation of the trachea occurring at, or even a little above, the superior aperture of the thorax. This condition I have observed in the female Ciconia boyciana which died on January 15th, 1874, as well as in examples of C. maguari and C. alba. In the male of C. nigra the bronchi are known to be peculiarly longf, and to form an ce-shaped curve entering the lungs. No other peculiarities have been described among these birds. A specimen of Tantalus ibis was purchased by the Society on the 26th of May, 1873, which died on the 12th of March, 1875. It proved to be a male. The following is the arrangement of the convolutions of its trachea (see figure, p. 298). The windpipe descends the neck in front of the oesophagus without any peculiarities being observable, the rings which go to compose it being exactly like those of other allied birds, circular, complete, elastic, notched in the middle line before and behind, and of ordinary depth. Directly it reaches the superior aperture of the thorax, between the two rami of the furcula, a sudden change occurs. The succeeding rings are inelastic, from being ossified; and they are ossified together in pairs, so that their apparent depth is more than double that of the cervical rings, the intermediate membrane being included in the double rings. The depth of the unmodified rings is hardly more than y1^ of an inch, that of the intrathoracic modified ones being as much as | of an inch. The diameter of both is about 3 of an inch ; those in the chest are further peculiar in developing a slight median longitudinal ridge along their posterior surface. The two musculi depressores trachea, after running down the * Vol. xvi. p. 499. t Naumann's Naturgeschichte der Vogel Deutschlands, vol. ix. p. 229. |