260 PODICEPS IIUBRICOLLIS. 



lialf its leiif^th, then declinate and a little convex, the ridge 

 convex, as are the sides, the edges sharp and inflected, the 

 tip narrow but rather blunt. The lower mandible has the 

 intcrcruval space very long and narrow, the crural outline 

 straight, the dorsal line ascending and slightly convex, the 

 sides nearly erect and flattened, the edges sharp and inclinate, 

 the tip narrow and somewhat obtuse. 



Internally the upper mandible presents a very narrow 

 groove, with three longitudinal ridges. The lower mandible 

 forms a still narrower groove. The tongue, an inch and a 

 luilf in length, is very slender, trigonal, tapering, with a thin 

 horny point. The oesophagus, ten inches and a half in length, 

 is nine-twelfths in width at the upper part, then contracts to 

 half an inch ; but the proventriculus forms a large ovate sac, 

 an inch and three fourths in breadth. The stomach is very 

 large, of a roundish compressed form, moderately muscular, 

 its tendons circular, and the epithelium thick, soft, and with 

 prominent longitudinal rugse. The proventricular glandules 

 are very large, being nearly half an inch in length. There 

 is a small pyloric sac. The intestine, which is thirty-five 

 inches long, is half an inch wide in its duodenal part, but 

 diminishes to a quarter of an inch. The cccca are two inches 

 long, two-twelfths in width, narrower at the commencement, 

 and three inches distant from the extremity of the rectum, 

 which has a large globular cloaca an inch and a half in 

 width. 



The eyes are small, their aperture three-twelfths. The 

 nostrils linear, two-and-a-half-twelfths long. The tibia bare 

 for a quarter of an inch ; the tarsus extremely compressed, 

 seven-twelfths in depth, with large lateral plates, sixteen 

 anterior small scutella, and behind a double row of prominent, 

 compressed, rounded scales ; the hind toe very small, with 

 an inferior lobe ; the second toe with twenty-five scutella, the 

 third with thirty-five, the fourth forty-five ; the anterior toes 

 connected by membranes at the base, and in the rest of their 

 extent margined with broad lobes marked with paralU>l 

 oblique lines. The claws are flattened, that of the middle 

 toe largest and serrulate. 



The plumage is soft, blended, glossy above, silkv beneatli ; 



