PIED SMEW. 235 



short bristles ; the tip thin, horny, and channelled. The 

 oesophagus, nine inches long, is of moderate width, varying 

 about an inch, the proventriculus an inch and two-twelfths. 

 The stomach is a muscular gizzard, of a transversely elliptical 

 form, an inch and four-twelfths long, an inch and three- 

 fourths in breadth, its muscles very thick, the epithelium 

 rugous, with two grinding plates. The intestine very long, 

 of moderate width; the coeca three inches in length, and 

 placed at the distance of two inches and a quarter from the 

 extremity. The contents of the stomach, in this individual, 

 grains of quartz, mud, and small seeds. It has been asserted 

 that this bird has no coecal appendages, but resembles the 

 herons in having a single caput ccecum to the colon or rec- 

 tum ; but this, like many other assertions of the " ornitholo- 

 gists," I find incorrect. 



The trachea of a male of this species, which I have pre- 

 pared from a specimen obtained in Edinburgh, differs greatly 

 from that of the other species, as well as from those of the 

 Goosanders. It is nine inches in length ; for two inches and 

 a half considerably flattened and very narrow, its average 

 breadth being only two-twelfths. It then gradually enlarges 

 to five-twelfths, becomes round, and so continues to the end. 

 The rings, an hundred and twenty-three in number, are 

 rather broad and firm, gradually more so toward the lower 

 end. There, several united rings form the lower larynx, of 

 which the right side is scarcely enlarged, being similar to 

 that of the female Goosanders ; but the left expands continu- 

 ously from the right in front, into an obliquely ascending 

 rounded bulge, terminating behind in a very thin and narrow, 

 semi-circular ridge, with two lateral membranes, of which the 

 posterior is largest. This, properly the tympanum, commu- 

 nicates with the larynx and gives off the left bronchus, at the 

 distance of two-thirds of an inch from the other. The greatest 

 diameter of the dilatation is an inch and four-twelfths. The 

 bronchi are short, with twenty half-rings. It is pretty well 

 described by M. Temminck, who, however, errs egregiously 

 in saying that the tube of the trachea is composed of " demi- 

 anneaux qui alternent," he having been deceived by the 

 manner in which the rings lock into each other. This I 



