624 BERNICLA LEUCOPSIS. 



diameter three inches, its lateral muscles extremely large, 

 with large tendons ; the epithelium dense, with two thick, 

 somewhat concave grinding plates. The intestine is seven 

 feet nine inches in length, its duodenal portion twelve 

 inches, the rectum six. The duodenum is three-fourths of 

 an inch in width, the rest of the intestine half-an-inch, but 

 toward the cceca gradually enlarged to eight-twelfths. The 

 coeca are seventeen inches long, for three inches only a 

 quarter of an inch in width, then enlarging to an inch and a 

 half, and toward the end narrowed, but terminating ob- 

 tusely ; their aperture two-twelfths in width. 



The plumage is full, close, very soft, and glossy ; on the 

 head, neck, and lower parts blended ; the feathers on the 

 head small and oblong, on the neck narrow, on the fore part 

 of the back and wings broad and abruptly rounded, on the 

 hind part smaller and broadly rounded, on the lower parts 

 moderate, on the sides very large and abrupt. The wings 

 are long, extending almost to the end of the tail, broad, 

 with twenty-eight quills ; the primaries strong, tapering ; 

 the first and second distinctly cut out on the inner, the 

 second and third on the outer web ; the second longest, the 

 first four-twelfths of an inch shorter, the rest rapidly de- 

 creasing ; the secondaries broad and rounded, the inner elon- 

 gated, with their outer webs somewhat undulated. The tail 

 is very short, rounded, of sixteen broad, rounded feathers, of 

 which the outer are an inch shorter than the longest. 



The bill is black; the iris hazel; the feet black. The 

 anterior half of the head, the sides of its hind part, the 

 cheeks, ear-coverts, and the throat, to the length of two 

 inches and a quarter from the bill, are white ; some of the 

 feathers margining the upper mandible, the loral space, and 

 both eyelids brownish-black ; the posterior half of the head 

 and the neck are glossy black, that colour ending abruptly 

 below ; the lower parts of the body greyish- white, the sides 

 barred with pale ash-grey ; the tibial feathers brownish- 

 black; the axillar feathers and lower wing-coverts grey. 

 The fore part of the back is glossy black continuously with 

 the neck, the feathers grey at the base ; farther back the 

 grey appears, is succeeded by a broad band of black and a 



