OCR Text |
Show 1874.] MR. A. H. GARROD ON THE AUSTRALIAN BUSTARD. 471 The Norwegian Lemming was first detected in a fossil state by Hensel, who found remains in the same deposits at Quedlinburg as the last species. In Britain it has only been found, as far as we are aware, in the Somersetshire bone-caves. Six lower jaws from these caverns are in the Taunton Museum, and were identified with this species by Mr. Sanford, although he remarks that they are slightly smaller and have the condyle somewhat more slender than recent specimens. They agree, however, so closely, especially with skulls of young animals, that we do not think there can be any doubt as to their identity. At the present day M. lemmus is very restricted in its range, being found only in the Scandinavian peninsula and in Russian Lapland. In the postpliocene epoch it extended at least as far south as Saxony and England. In this species, as in the allied M. obensis, the prisms of the posterior molars in both jaws are nearly separated from each other, the folds of enamel passing almost completely across the tooth; they are much twisted and compressed longitudinally. The last upper molar sometimes varies slightly; but the rest of the pattern is very constant, being:- Upper I. 5 spaces, 6 angles. Lower I. 5 spaces, 7 angles. ,, 11. 4 „ D ,, ,, 11. O ,, O ,, „ III. 4 „ 6 or 7 „ „ III. 4 „ 5 „ W e have compared the jaws in the Taunton Museum with recent specimens in our own collection. 12. On the "Showing-off" of the Australian Bustard (Eupo-dotis australis). B y A . H . G A R R O D , B.A., F.Z.S., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, Prosector to the Society. [Received May 23, 1874.] Whether the account of the production of the great distention of the neck in the male Australian Bustard which follows will in any way simplify the question of the presence or absence of a gular pouch in Bustards generally, is doubtful. At all events it will rectify an accepted error, and add a fresh fact to the considerable literature of the subject. In the 'Proceedings' of this Society for 1868 (p. 471 et seq.), Dr. Murie pictures the sexual "show-off" in a specimen of Eupodotis australis which was presented to the Society in April 1866, by the Acclimatization Society of Sydney, and infers, from its appearance, that, as an undoubted fact, the gular pouch is present in this specimen of the species at least. In 1873, during one of the months in which it was " showing off," namely in May, I examined the mouth of this identical bird while alive, and could find no trace of a sublingual orifice, and, what is more, felt and saw a median frenum linguae quite distinctly. This |