Mr. A. Newton on the Gular Pouch of the Male Bustard. 107 



XV. — On the supposed Chilar Pouch of the Male Bustard (Otis 

 tarda, Linn.). By Alfred Newton, M.A., F.L.S. 



An article by Dr. Gloger, of Berlin, lately published in the 

 ' Journal fiir Ornithologie,' and alluded to by the Editor in the 

 last Number of this Magazine [' Ibis,' 1862, p. 83), has prompted 

 me to transmit a reply to the attack made by that talented writer 

 on "^ three English anatomists and natm-alists." The reason 

 why 1 have felt myself bound to answer the charges thus ad- 

 duced by Dr. Gloger is not only that the subject of his paper is 

 one in which I have for some time past been peculiarly interested, 

 but also that, of the three gentlemen whom he especially selects 

 to hold up to ridicule, two have passed away from this world, 

 and these two I had the honour to count among my earliest 

 ornithological friends. On behalf of the third I have not at- 

 tempted to speak. The situation Professor Ovven holds in the 

 scieatific world is, by his assailant's own admission, so lofty, that 

 nothing Dr. Gloger says by way of detraction, or that I could 

 allege by way of defence, would in the least affect it. 



Having then, with the kind assistance of my friend Dr. Hart- 

 laub, done what I could to repel the virulent and uncalled-for 

 invective of Dr. Gloger upon the late Mr. Yarrell and the late 

 Mr. Mitchell, I shall not here say more about it, for I desire to 

 allay bitter feelings rather than to excite them. But I consider 

 the question of the existence or non-existence of a gular pouch 

 in the male Bustard one of a nature so curious, that I do not 

 scruple to cite somewhat fully the singularly conflicting evidence 

 on the subject, as given by various observers, believing that the 

 readers of * The Ibis ' cannot fail to be interested in it. 



According to Schneider (Reliqua Librorum Friderici II. Im- 

 peratoris, &c., Lipsise, 1788, i. p. 34), the Emperor Friedrich II. 

 noticed the " gi-ossum collum " possessed by both sexes of the 

 Great Bustard, and especially by the males " tempore coitus," as 

 did also, in 1681, Sir Thomas Browne. This learned man, whose 

 knowledge of natural history was so far beyond that of his con- 

 temporaries, further remarks (Works, Wilkins' edition, i. p. 311) 

 that, " as a Turkey hath an odde large substance without, so had 

 this [Otis tarda^ within the inside of the skinne." Towards the 

 end of the seventeenth century, six examples of the Great Bustard, 



