134 VAXELLUS CRISTATUS. 



habits. Its body is moderately full, its neck rather short, 

 its head oblong and somewhat compressed, but rounded 

 above, being much elevated in front ; its legs slender and of 

 moderate length ; its wings very long and broadly rounded. 

 The bill is shorter than the head, straight, gently tapering, 

 rather slender, with the edges a little involute toward the 

 end, the nasal groove extending to two-thirds of the whole 

 length, the tip hard, narrow, and rather obtuse. 



The mandibles are internally concave, the aperture of the 

 posterior nares linear and margined with papillae. The 

 tongue papillate at the base, long, slender, concave above, 

 thin, horny, and involute toward the end, which is obtuse. 

 The oesophagus, which is six inches long, is of moderate 

 width, without dilatation, the proventriculus somewhat bulbi- 

 form ; the stomach a strong gizzard, an inch and a half in 

 length, its muscles very thick, the epithelium dense, with 

 parallel ruga?. The intestine is twenty-six inches long, 

 nearly uniform in diameter, its duodenal portion a third of 

 an inch across ; the coeca, which are cylindrical, and two 

 and a half inches long, are three inches distant from the 

 extremity. 



The eyes are rather large, their aperture being four and 

 a half twelfths in diameter. The nostrils linear, three- 

 twelfths long. The aperture of the ear measures four- 

 twelfths across. The tibise are bare for about half-an-inch ; 

 the tarsus has about twenty-eight anterior scutella, the first 

 toe six, the second tAventy, the third twenty-four, the fourth 

 twenty ; the claws are short, arched, compressed, blunted ; 

 that of the hind toe conical. The carpal knob is blunt, and 

 covered by the skin. 



The plumage is very soft, on the neck and lower parts 

 blended, on the upper parts glossy and somewhat silky, but 

 imbricated ; on the head short. On the occiput is a recur- 

 vate, dependent, erectile, crest of about twenty unequal 

 linear feathers. The wings are very long, of moderate 

 breadth ; the first quill is scarcely an inch long, the second 

 three-fourths of an inch shorter than the fourth, which is 

 longest, and about the same length as the eighth. The pri- 

 maries broad and rounded ; the outer secondaries very broad 



