S8S t>r Adam mi the Ciconia Argala, or Adjutant Bird. 



to the peculiar economy of the animal, and regard the phenome- 

 non as a concord in the grand harmony of creation. The food 

 of the Adjutant bird being wholly of an animal nature, its diges- 

 tion and assimilation must obviously augment the internal tempe- 

 rature, and therefore render its frame less capable of enduring 

 heat from without. To obviate the effects arising from this sus- 

 ceptibility, nature, then, has bestowed on him the instinct of as- 

 cending to a more rarefied and congenial medium ; and that he is 

 enabled to remain there, it would seem not improbable, is chiefly 

 owing to the agency of this organ. Even with the aid of a glass, 

 we cannot perceive whether the bag is distended during the time 

 the bird is soaring in the atmosphere, and so prove the corre- 

 spondence of the fact with the theory ; but as it seems remark- 

 able that so heavy a bird should continue long poised in " mid 

 air" without some provision of the kind, it cannot be deemed 

 unreasonable, I think, if we infer that such may be supplied by 

 the appendage now under consideration. 



As to any other peculiarities of structure which may have 

 been noticed in the description, they receive a ready explana- 

 tion from the well known habits of the bird. The vast capacity 

 of gullet, furnished by the numerous longitudinal plicae, extend- 

 ing from the pharynx to the cardia, and the enormous size and 

 powers of the stomach, are in perfect unison with his extraor- 

 dinary voracity. To relate instances of this would be to repeat 

 an often times told tale. In India they are of every day's oc- 

 currence, and would scarcely be credited by those who have not 

 had an opportunity of witnessing them. A leg of mutton, or a 

 litter of live kittens swallowed whole, prove equally acceptable 

 to his all-devouring maw ; and earth, bones, and hair (as the 

 above dissection shewed), form a mixed mass, from which he 

 appears indiscriminately to draw his subsistence. 



On the Theory of the Air-Thermometer. By Mr Henry 

 Metkle. Communicated by the Author. 



V 



ARious notions have been at different times advanced re- 

 garding the rate of expansion in solids and liquids as a measure 



4 



