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Show 536 MESSRS. BEDDARD AND MITCHELL ON THE [June 19, 7. On the Anatomy of Palamedea cornuta. By F. E. BEDDARD, M.A., F.R.S., Prosector to the Society, and P. CHALMERS MITCHELL, M.A., F.Z.S. [Received June 18, 1894.] The Horned Screamer which had been in the Society's Gardens since September 9, 1890, having died upon April 5, 1894, we determined to examine its anatomy with some minuteness, as it is a member of a small group of birds about the position of which systematists differ in opinion. Moreover, although Chauna has been dissected more than once, there is no account extant of the anatomy of the soft parts of Palamedea. § EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. Our specimen was a female. The skin was very emphysematous, as in the case of Chauna ; but there were patches of skin not blown out with air upon the under surface of the humerus near the shoulder, and the under surface of the greater part of the arm was similarly undistended. The number of rectrices was 14. The wing was quintocubital and the large oil-gland was natiform, covered with feathers and tufted. This tuft did not completely surround the aperture of the gland, but formed an arch over the dorsal and lateral margins of the aperture. Prom this a median line of feathers bisected the aperture of the gland. All these feathers were black ; two small white feathers form the middle of each half of the lower margin. § VISCERA OF ABDOMEN. "When the body-wall was cut through near the midventral line only the left lobe of the liver was exposed. The falciform ligament was pressed to the right side and neither lobe of the liver was shut off from the subomental space. The omentum was attached to the parietes and to the oblique septa in front up to the level of tbe proveutriculus. The stomach was covered by an emphysematous patch. A large gall-bladder was present. The cystic duct entered the intestine at the summit of the ascending lobe of the duodenum ; next below it, and therefore nearer to the stomach, the hepatic duct entered, and below that again a single pancreatic duct. The proventriculus was large relatively to the gizzard; the proventricular glands, clearly visible from the outside, formed a continuous cap interrupted only by the entrance of the oesophagus over the upper end of the proventriculus. The lower margin of this cap reached to the end of the first quarter of the length of the proventriculus. The small intestine was 8 feet 2 inches in length; where it joined the large intestine the calibre of the gut increased very |
