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Show 350 ME. P. CHALMERS MITCHELL ON THE [May 7, 2. On the Anatomy of Chauna chavaria. By P. CHALMERS MITCHELL, M.A., F.Z.S. [Received May 6, 1895.] Owing to the kindness of my friend, the Prosector of the Society, Mr. F. E. Beddard, I have had the opportunity of examining the anatomy of a female specimen of Chauna chavaria, the Crested Screamer. Garrod (1) has given an account of the anatomy of Chauna derbiana; M r . Beddard and I (2) have published the results of our investigation of Palamedea cornuta; but less has been written about Chauna chavaria, and I have thought it worth while to examine carefully this third of the three known species of the Palamedeidse. External Characters. The skin was very emphysematous, even upon the tibia, thus differing from C. derbiana, but, as in that and in Palmedea, there was a triangular space on each shoulder undistended by air. The number of rectrices was 12, as in G. derbiana, not 14 as in Palamedea. The wing was aquintocubital as in C. derbiana and in Palmedea 2 As Nitzsch states, there is a small aftershaft on some of the feathers on the nape of the neck. This is absent in other regions. The oil-gland is natiform, and is tufted and covered by feathers. It has two large apertures separated from each other by a narrow line of feathers. Viscera of Abdomen. I have little to add to Beddard's description of the septa (3). As in Palamedea, the lobes of the liver are not shut off from the subomental space. The falciform septum is nearly median and extends unusually far back, reaching to within half an inch of the ends of the pubes. The horizontal septum was a stout brown membrane attached to the pubes behind and forking over the stomach. The oblique septa stretched from the pubes to the pericardium, and contained numerous striae in their thick walls. The lobes of the liver were more nearly equal in size than in Palamedea. The gall-bladder was large, and the cystic, hepatic, and single pancreatic ducts entered the summit of the ascending loop of the duodenum exactly as w e described in Palamedea (2), and not at the position described by Garrod for 0. derbiana (1). The proventriculus (s) was very capacious, and, as Garrod describes in C. derbiana, the glandular area forms a narrow zone round the anterior end and a long triangular patch stretching dowmonthe side. In this respect, certainly, the proventriculus is, as Garrod 1 In our paper on Palamedea (P. Z. S. 1884, p. 536), by an oversight, we stated that the wing was quintocubital. W e have examined three specimens and found the fifth feather absent in each, |
