RED-BREASTED GOOSANDER. 217 



slender form. The body is elongated, depressed, and tapering 

 at both ends ; the neck rather long, thick below, and much 

 contracted above ; the head rather large, oblongo-ovate, nar- 

 rowed and compressed anteriorly. 



The bill is about the length of the head, nearly straight, 

 being but slightly rearcuate, slender, tapering, cylindrical 

 toward the end, but higher than broad at the base. The 

 upper mandible with its dorsal line gently declinate to the 

 middle, then straight or slightly ascending to the unguis, 

 which is elliptical, convex, and decurved, the ridge broad and 

 flattened at the base, convex in the rest of its extent, the 

 nasal sinus oblong, basal, with a groove running from its 

 anterior end to the side of the unguis, the limbs slender, con- 

 vex, the edges with thirty-two narrow, tapering, acuminate, 

 dentiform lamellae, directed backwards. The lower mandible 

 slender, with the intercrural space very long, pointed, ante- 

 riorly a mere groove, the crura with their lower outline gently 

 rearcuate, the sides convex, longitudinally grooved toward 

 the margin, the unguis elliptical, convex, the edges inclinate, 

 with about forty-five compressed serriform lamellae, much 

 smaller, and directed less backwards than the upper. 



The mouth is dilatable to an inch and a half. The palate 

 is flat, anteriorly with a median ridge, and on each side a 

 series of small, acute lamellae, separated by a groove from 

 those of the margin. The tongue, an inch and nine-twelfths 

 in length, is fleshy, tapering, with two series of acute reversed 

 papillae above, and a double series of bristly filaments on the 

 sides. The oesophagus, twelve inches and a half in length, is 

 very wide, having an average diameter of an inch and a half 

 along the neck, an inch in entering the thorax, and after- 

 w^ards nearly an inch and a half. The proventriculur part is 

 two inches long, its glandules cylindrical and very numerous, 

 from two-twelfths to three-twelfths in length, forming a belt 

 an inch and a half in breadth. The stomach is rather small, 

 being an inch and a half in length, an inch and ten-twelfths 

 in breadth, of a roundish form, compressed, with moderately- 

 developed muscles, a quarter of an inch thick ; the tendons 

 very large, being ten-twelfths in breadth, and seven-twelfths 

 in length ; the inner coat thick and irregularly rugous. The 



