OCR Text |
Show 1870.] ANATOMY OF THREE KINGFISHERS. 281 portunities of examining specimens of Ceryle stellata, which is not uncommon in these dreary regions, and may frequently be observed perched on the branch of a tree overhanging the water, keeping a vigilant look-out for its finny prey. It occasionally utters a harsh stridulant note, and appears to be a bird of a bold disposition, an individual on more than one occasion having alighted on the lower rigging of the ship and remained there composedly for some time. While skinning a specimen shot at Port Otway in the Gulf of Perias, in the month of April 1868, m y attention was arrested by what appeared to m e a peculiarity in one of the superficial muscles of the back of the neck, i. e. the biventer cervicis. This muscle, which I have had an opportunity of examining in a variety of birds of different orders, generally differentiates itself from the other spinal muscles at the lower portion of the cervical region, and, extending throughout the entire extent of the neck, is inserted into a prominent ridge on the occiput. Asa rule it consists of an upper and lower muscular portion or belly separated by an intermediate strong tendon of varying extent. The greatest part of this tendon, as well as the lower muscular portion, is finely bound down along the back of the spine by a strong aponeurotic sheath, which, however, permits of a free gliding motion within it. Of the two muscular portions, the lower, according to Meckel, who has described some of the principal modifications of this muscle in the third volume of his * System der vergleichenden Anatomie,' is much the larger ; but this is not the case in the Kingfishers, according to m y observations. On carefully dissecting the muscles in several specimens of Ceryle stellata, I found that the corresponding muscles of opposite sides were united at the junction of the tendon with the upper muscular portion by a narrow but strong transverse tendon (see Plate XXIV. fig. 1), and that, in addition to this, a strong membrano-tendinous junction was likewise present between them at their insertion into the occiput. As I had never observed this connexion between the opposite muscles in any of the other birds examined by me, I was anxious to procure specimens of some other species of Kingfishers in order to ascertain whether the like peculiarity obtained in them also ; and this I have been enabled to do through the kindness of my friend Mr. Sharpe, who has furnished me with specimens of our common Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida) and the Laughing Jackass of Australia (Dacelo gigas). On dissecting an example of the former of these birds (shot in the beginning of February of this year), I found that a considerable space, filled with fat, intervened between the biventer of each side, and that there was no trace of a tendinous union between them (see Plate XXIV. fig. 3) ; further that the aponeurotic sheath binding clown the lower portion of the muscle to the spine was very feebly developed. In the latter bird (Plate XXIV. fig. 2) the muscles lay closer together, and there was a very strong aponeurotic sheath, but no tendinous connexion. It is therefore not improbable that this may be either a generic or specific peculiarity ; how arising, or for what purpose provided, 1 am not prepared to say. |