468 Information respecting Zoological fy Botanical Travellers. 



knows, always originate from the ventral face of the digest- 

 ive tube, whatever their position may be in the splanchnic 

 cavity, and it is always on the ventral side of the pharynx 

 that the opening of the glottis is found ; it is the same with 

 the Lepidosiren ; and if the resemblance between the lungs of 

 all these animals and the air-bladder of the Lepisostei and of 

 the Amice was as great as Mr. Owen seems to think it is, we 

 ought to find this same character of organic relationship be- 

 tween the oesophagus and the bladder of these fish. Now it 

 is quite the contrary ^ for the kind of pseudo-glottis which 

 establishes the communication between this cellular pouch 

 and the digestive tube originates from the dorsal face of the 

 oesophagus. There exists then a fundamental anatomical dif- 

 ference between these parts, whatever else may be their phy- 

 siological functions, and this difference furnishes a fresh ar- 

 gument in favour of the opinion of those who consider the 

 Lepidosiren as a Reptile. 



I shall also add, that in the Lepidosiren paradoxa the abdo- 

 minal viscera which, for the most part, were wanting in the 

 individuals dissected by M. Bischoff, greatly resembled those 

 of the Lepidosiren annectens, whose structure Mr. Owen has 

 made known. M. Bibron and myself have sought there in 

 vain for the traces of a pancreas and of a spleen, and the spiral 

 valve of the intestine appeared to us to be still more developed 

 than in the Lepidosiren annectens. 



LV. — Information respecting Zoological and Botanical 

 Travellers. 



The expedition under Mr. Schomburgk, appointed at the expense of 

 Government, to survey the boundaries of British Guiana, has sailed 

 for Demerara. Messrs. Glascott, R.N., and Mr. Walton accompany 

 it, the first as assistant-surveyor, the latter as artist ; but unless we 

 are misinformed, there is no naturalist or collector on the part of 

 this country, — Mr. Richard Schomburgk, brother to the director of 

 the expedition, going out as a naturalist at the expense of the Prus- 

 sian government and by permission ; and thus we fear that the 

 whole fruits, so far as natural history is concerned, of an expedition 

 carried into a rich and partly unknown country at British expense 

 and under British protection, will be carried off to a foreign king- 

 dom, for the want of a person to attend exclusively to that branch, 

 and who could have accompanied the party at comparatively small 

 expense, and under circumstances of advantage of which others have 

 known how to avail themselves. There is time still to remedy this. 



The " Niger expedition" will also sail in a short time. One of the 

 commanders is already known to be an excellent draughtsman, and 



