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16 NATURAL SCIENCE [November 



plumes allong^es qui s'y implantent. A la fin de juillet > elle com- 

 mence a s'affaisser, les plumes tombent, se renouvellent, si bien 

 qu'avant la fin de septembre il ne reste plus rien de cette grande 

 masse de tissu cellulaire." Owen, a year previously, had dissected a 

 specimen, said to have been a male, 1 apparently for this purpose, and 

 found " no trace of a gular pouch," thus so far confirming Degland : 

 Mitchell, Yarrell, and later, Professor Newton, all searched carefully 

 for this pouch, and failed to find it ; neither could they discover any 

 opening under the tongue. The latter thus describes his search :— 

 " We cleared the skin away from the entire neck. . . . The neck 

 was entirely clothed with cellular tissues in a most remarkable 

 manner ; they were very delicate, and so close to the skin, that even 

 when we grazed the roots of the feathers we occasionally cut them. 

 On the blowpipe being inserted into one of the apertures thus made, 

 a small bubble was immediately raised, which increased on greater 

 power, being applied so as to form a considerable bag, perhaps three 

 inches long, ... it was plain . . . that none of these bags existed of 

 themselves, but were the result of the membranes being forcibly 

 ruptured by the pressure of the air." 



Thus, then, at this time, so far as English ornithologists were 

 concerned, the case for the existence of a gular pouch in the Bustard 

 had fallen through for lack of evidence. There seemed to be no 

 other way of explaining the facts advanced by the older writers than 

 that of supposing the ' pouch ' which they saw was artificial, caused by 

 the rupture of cellular tissues. Unless indeed it was, as some sug- 

 gested possible, present in some individuals, but not in others. That 

 the specimens dissected in England, says Professor Newton (14), "were 

 not all young, undeveloped birds, is also clear ; but if any further evi- 

 dence on this point is required, I would refer to the beautiful picture 

 by Mr Wolf (fig. 1), which was drawn from an individual in our 

 Zoological Gardens, — an individual afterwards the subject of one of 

 the examinations here mentioned, though of which is not certain. 

 No one who looks at that picture . . . can for a moment doubt 

 that the original was a truly adult, mature, and fully developed bird. 



Dr Cullen (3), inspired by Professor Newton's article (14), 

 published the results of an examination of two males procured by 

 him in Kustendjie, Bulgaria. Tn both of these a pouch was found, 

 the largest of which he figured. The " opening under the tongue," 

 he writes, " is large enough to admit readily the little finger, and is 

 surrounded by what has all the appearance of a sphincter-muscle . . . 

 the pouch extended as far down as the furcular bone, enveloped 

 closely throughout by a thin muscular covering exactly analogous in 

 structure to the crcmaster or platysma hyoides. The structure of the 

 sac ... is certainly not composed of cellular tissue as stated by 



1 Garrod suggested that this was probably a female. 



