1898] OULAR TOUCH OF THE Oil EAT BUSTARD 315 



hincin gerathen zu sein schienen. Er Bcheint mil iiberhaupt mehr 

 ein Luftala Wasserbehalter zu sein. Sein Zweck bleibt vor tier 

 Hand ein Rathsel, wie er dies schon lange war." 



John Hunter apparently made a dissection of this pouch. He 

 did not, however, subscribe to the prevalent opinion that it served 

 as a receptacle for water, on the contrary he candidly expresses that 

 he does not know what its use may be. He describes it as " a large 

 bag, as large as the thick part of one's arm : it terminates in a 

 blind pouch below, but has an opening into it at the upper end 

 from the mouth. This aperture will admit three or four fingers l ; 

 it is under the tongue, and the fraenum linguae seems to enter it ; 

 and it seems to have a sphincter. What the use of this is I don't 

 know. . . ." 



None of the writers so' far quoted seem to have connected this 

 pouch with the phenomena of sexual display, probably because they 

 had never witnessed the remarkable evolutions and contortions of 

 this bird during its moments of ecstatic frenzy. 



The credit of this interpretation perhaps belongs to Schneider. 

 It seems, however, that he had never examined this pouch for him- 

 self, but relied on the accuracy of the observations of those more 

 fortunate who had. Commenting upon Bloch's statement, which 

 evidently much puzzled him, that the pouch was found in both 

 sexes, he says : — " Si mas solus sacco gulari gaudet, potest turn in 

 amore eum forte inflare, ut collum intumescat. Contra si femina 

 eundem habet, quod vix credo, alium turn eidem usum excogitare 

 debemus." It is possible, however, that Schneider is indebted to 

 the Emperor Friedrich the II. for the suggestion that the pouch may 

 be occasionally and voluntarily inflated. Inasmuch as the latter, 

 acquainted only with the external phenomena, drew attention to the 

 "'grossum collum' possessed by both sexes of the Great Bustard, 

 and especially the males ' tempore coitus.' " 



Quite another rendering was given as an explanation of this 

 curious inflation of the neck by Degland (4), who writes: — " Je 

 dois a mon honorable confrere, le docteur Dorin, de Clmlons-sur- 

 Marne, la connaissance d'un fait assez curieux et que je ne dois pas 

 omettre. A l'epoque des amours, il se developpe dans le lieu meme 

 ou x'inserent les moustaches, une sorte de fanon, forme par une masse 

 de tissu cellulaire graisseux, lache, dont le volume est considerable, 

 puisqu'il atteint et depasse le poids d'un kilogramme. Cette sorte de 

 fanon, qui occupe la partie anterieure et laterale du con, est formee 

 de deux masses qui se reunissent sur la ligne mediane a partir de la 

 naissance des barbes jusqu'au has du collier. C'est au moyen de 

 muscles fauciers assez developpes que l'oiseau pent im primer des 

 mouvements a cette masse, et par consequent relever ou abaisser les 



: The spaced type is mine. 



