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Show 1880.] ANATOMY OF PASSERINE BIRDS. 389 As regards the alimentary canal, there is nothing peculiar. The tongue, in the specimen forwarded from Paris, was removed; but, W G T I°™ f r ° m -M' M i l a e-E dward's figure, it is triangular and bifid at the end. There is no crop developed ; and the zonary proventriculus is half an inch deep. The stomach is a strong gizzard, rather elongated in shape, with thick and considerably plicated epithelium. The liver is unequilobed, the left lobe being half the size of the right; it has a gall-bladder. The total length of the intestines is seven inches, of which the last half-inch is'large intestine. The caeca are truly passerine, being mere nipples, and rather widely separated. The syrinx of Philepitta being hitherto entirely unknown, I herewith give a description and figures of it. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 2. Syrinx of Philepitta, from before. Fig. 3. The same, from behind. Fig. 4. The same, from the right side. (These figures are magaified about 4 times.) The trachea is slightly laterally compressed below; the rings, which are complete, are somewhat irregular in shape, owing to the greater or less development of the notchings on their borders. In front, of the last few rings preceding the terminal one, two or more are joined together by vertically directed bars, which makes it difficult to count their number with exactitude. Behind, however, they are all free. The terminal tracheal ring is narrow laterally, and closely apposed to the first bronchial semirings ; in front and behind it is produced downwards triangularly, and behind bears a well-developed forwardly directed narrow pessulus. As seen from behind, therefore, the terminal tracheal ring has somewhat the shape of an arrow-head. The narrow sterno-tracheales are inserted on about the last ring but six. The first bronchial semirings are thickened, and very much arched, being concave downwards. As seen from the side (fig. 4) they are more strongly convex anteriorly than posteriorly. The second and third semirings are very slender indeed, closely approximate, much shorter and much less concave downward, so that a large membranous fenestra is left between them and the first semirings. The fourth and fifth semirings are also slender, but less so than the last two: they are slightly concave upwards, so that 26* |