160 MR. YARRELL ON THE HABITS OF THE GREAT BUSTARD. 



I was disappointed, and began to doubt the accuracy of my own investigation, but on 

 turning to the volume containing a translation of the anatomical descriptions of the many 

 animals dissected by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, published here by an order 

 of the Council of the Royal Society of London, 1702, I found that although the dissec- 

 tions of six Great Bustards, and all of them males, were therein detailed, beginning at 

 page 197, there was no mention of a gular pouch, and the following extracts are in 

 accordance with the observations on the soft parts already described : — " The rings of the 

 Aspera arteria (windpipe) were entire. In some of the subjects there was on each side 

 a caruncle or red gland, immediately fastened to the Aspera arteria and to the carotids. 

 In the palate and lower part of the beak there was under the membrane which covers 

 these parts, several glandular bodies which did open into the cavity of the mouth by 

 several very visible tubes." 



Cuvier, in his ' Lecons d'Anatomie Comparee,' 1799, dwells at some length on the blood- 

 vessels, glands and cellular tissue of the neck in birds, but he does not refer to any pecu- 

 liarity in the neck of the Great Bustard. 



Unwilling, however, to offer my statement to the notice of the Linnean Society without 

 consulting the best living authority in this country, namely Professor Owen, I mentioned 

 the subject to him, and had the satisfaction to find that Mr. Owen agreed with me 

 entirely — that there is in the Great Bustard neither an orifice under the tongue, nor a 

 gular pouch ; and he had the kindness to send me a written note in confirmation. " The 

 following was the result of my dissection of a full-grown Bustard, with the view of obtain- 

 ing a preparation of the alleged gular pouch for the Physiological Series : — No. 772 Q. 

 The head of a Bustard, Otis tarda, with the mouth and fauces exposed, showing the 

 glandular orifices between the rami of the lower jaw, the tongue, glottis, internal nostril 

 and Eustachian orifice. There is no trace of a gular pouch." < The preparation has this 

 description in the Museum Gallery Catalogue. 



I am therefore disposed to consider that Dr. Douglas was mistaken as to the species of 

 bird examined; and that the summer seasonal enlargement of the glands and cellular 

 structure in the neck of the Great Bustard, accompanied as it is by the assumption of cer- 

 tain elongated feathers called the beard, and a stripe of naked blue skin on each side of 

 the neck, is analogous to the excess of colour observed on the naked parts of the head 

 and neck in our Turkey cock in spring, and to the increase in the size of the glands of the 

 neck seen in the males of Deer during their rutting time. 



