84 MARECA PENELOPE. 



Male in Winter. — This beautiful bird presents nume- 

 rous modifications of colouring, individuals in the perfected 

 plumage of the adult being comparatively rare. The folloAv- 

 ing description is taken from a fine specimen, shot in the 

 south of Scotland, and selected from a multitude for the 

 purpose. The body is oblong, slightly depressed ; the neck 

 rather long and slender; the head of moderate size, com- 

 pressed, and well rounded above. The bill is considerably 

 shorter than the head, scarcely higher than broad at the base, 

 gradually depressed toward the end, where it is somewhat 

 narrower than at the base. The frontal angles are small, the 

 flattened part of the ridge short, the upper unguis obovato- 

 triangular, convex, and decurved, the lower broad and little 

 convex. On each side of the upper mandible are about 

 forty-five little elevated lamellse, the compressed, narroAv, and 

 rounded tips of which project a little beyond the margin, 

 from near the base to the end of the bill ; on the loAver are 

 thirty external, and sixty marginal lamellae. The tongue is 

 an inch and five-twelfths long, with numerous straight, 

 pointed papillse at the base, a median longitudinal groove, 

 lateral bristles, and a thin broadly-rounded point. The 

 oesophagus is ten inches long, from five to six-twelfths in 

 width ; the proventriculus nine-twelfths broad. The stomach 

 is oblique, transversely oblong, an inch and ten-twelfths in 

 length, two inches and seven-twelfths in breadth ; the lateral 

 muscles extremely developed, the right being an inch and a 

 twelfth and a half thick, the left an inch and three-fourths ; 

 the epithelium dense, rugous, with flat grinding surfaces. 

 The intestine is six feet three inches long, five-twelfths w4de 

 in the duodenal portion, gradually decreases, then enlarges 

 to nine-twelfths. The coeca are eleven inches long, two- 

 twelfths wide at the base, six-twelfths in their greatest width; 

 the rectum six inches long. 



The trachea is eight inches long, with about a hundred 

 and forty rings, of nearly equal width throughout, but at the 

 lower part with a transversely oblong bony dilatation, bulging 

 out on the left side in a rounded form, and an inch in its 

 greatest diameter. The bronchi are of moderate length, but 

 wide, and of about twenty-five half-rings. 



