OCR Text |
Show 1888.] VISCERAL ANATOMY OF BIRDS. 253 In the very complete description of the respiratory apparatus of birds which Prof. Wiedersheim gives in his ' Lehrbuch der ver-gleichenden Anatomie' there is no mention of any other bird in which muscular fibres cover the oblique septum ; Prof. Huxley's statement about the Duck is referred to in a footnote '. I have found that an identical structure occurs in two species of Penguin, viz. Eudyptula minor and Spheniscus demersus ; in both of these birds the oblique septum is covered posteriorly by a layer of muscular fibres which rise from the pubis and are attached ventrally to the sternum. After referring to the late Prof. Morrison Watson's elaborate Fig. 1. Dissection of Fratercula arctica, to illustrate disposition of oblique septum. a, oblique septum ; /, coils of intestine; Pb, pubis. and well-illustrated Report upon the Penguins collected by the ' Challenger'2, and finding there no mention of this muscular layer, I believed that this particular resemblance between the Puffin and the Penguins would be recorded for the first time in the present paper. Quite recently I have become acquainted with the contents of a short paper 3 by M . Filhol, in which he describes this muscular layer in the Penguin, though in another species. The following 1 P. 065, note 2. 2 Zool. Chall. Exp. vol. vii. 3 " Sur la constitution du diaphragme des Eudyptes," Bull. Soc. Philom. (7) t. vi. p. 235. |