| OCR Text |
Show 1882.] ON RARE BIRDS' EGGS FROM MADAGASCAR. 353 notes that the male of G. leucogeranos has a convoluted trachea, only slightly folded in the carina sterni, extending in it for less than halt its extent1; whilst in the female " there was formed a genu of small size, that does not enter the carina sterni." The female of G. carunculata examined had a trachea as well convoluted as the most developed forms of G. americana, whilst in the male the condition was as in the female of G. leucogeranos. Grus australasiana. cf [? 2 ]• canadensis. cf • In Tetrapteryx paradisea, according to Yarrell and Tegetmeier, as well as in Anthropoides virgo according to Parsons and Yarrell, the trachea is convoluted, but does not enter the carina sterni, being contained in a special groove developed along the anterior margin of that bone. [In both species of Balearica the trachea is known to be quite simple; and the same is probably true in Aramus scolopaceus.] 3. O n the Eggs of some rare Wading Birds from Madagascar. By J. E. HARTING, F.L.S., F.Z.S. [Eeceived March 21, 1882.] Amongst a large collection of eggs recently brought from Madagascar by the Rev. W . Deans Cowan, many of which are of considerable interest as being hitherto undescribed, are the eggs of three species of Limicola which I should like to bring before the notice of this Society, since they belong to members of a group to which I have for some years been paying special attention. Mr. Deans Cowan collected in the neighbourhood of Fianarantsoa in the Betsileo country, situated in the south central portion of Madagascar; and tbe extent of his collection shows how rich a field for ornithologists is the district in which he has for some years resided. The three species of Wading-birds of which I now exhibit the eggs, as well as the skins, are a Pratincole (Glareola ocularis, Verreaux), a Sand-Plover (AEgialitis geoffroyi, Wagler), and a Snipe (Gallinago macrodactyla, Bonaparte). The Pratincole and Snipe, which so far as I am aware have not been met with out of Madagascar, are both very rare in collections; the Sand-Plover, being generally distributed throughout Southern Asia, the Malay Archipelago, and Eastern Africa, is very much better known. 1. GLAREOLA OCULARIS, Verreaux, was first brought to the notice of naturalists by the late Jules Verreaux so long ago as 1833, when at a meeting of the South-African Institution at Cape Town in that year he exhibited and described a specimen, which, with other skins, he had then lately received from Madagascar. 1 The observations of Mr. A. O. H u m e (cf. Tegetmeier's ' Cranes,' p. 39, &c.) do not, therefore, always hold good for this species. 2 4* |
