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



afterwards the subject of one of the examinations here mentioned, 

 though of which is not certain. No one who looks at that 

 picture — representing as it does the male Otis tarda in all the 

 pride of lust — can for a moment doubt that the original was a 

 truly adult, mature and fully developed bird. 



In composing my reply to Dr. Gloger's article, w^hich I have for- 

 warded for insertion to the same Journal that contains his animad- 

 versions, I have chiefly had in view the vindication of Mr. Yarrell 

 and Mr. Mitchell, though, from the nature of the subject, I have 

 been forced to quote the statements which I have here repeated. 

 In England, where those gentlemen were better known, the same 

 necessity does not exist, and hence I can here with propriety sink 

 the capacity of a controversialist, which only a sense of duty com- 

 pelled me when addressing foreigners to assume, in favour of the 

 more agreeable character of an inquirer after truth. This I do 

 with greater readiness because I wish the questions (1) whether the 

 cock Bustard naturally has or has not a gular pouch, and (2) if 

 it has, at what age or in what way it originates, to be decided on 

 their own merits, apart from those personalities which Dr. Gloger 

 has introduced into the discussion. The questions indeed seem 

 as far from being settled now as ever they were, and I must 

 leave their determination to the ornithologists and anatomists of 

 those lands in which the Otis tarda still abounds. We in this 

 country have certainly done our best towards that end, but the 

 difiiculty of obtaining a sufficient number of fresh specimens is 

 so great that we may w^ell be excused from further researches. 

 In Germany the case is entirely different ; and I hope that my 

 remarks, if they are honoured with a place in the ' Journal fiir 

 Ornithologie,^ may tend to elucidate the truth. I must state 

 my opinion that dried preparations, such as those of the late Herr 

 Rammelsberg, to which Dr. Gloger appeals, afford no certain 

 evidence. As I have shown, we have had them already in Eng- 

 land ; nay, we have now at least one such, and that from a bird 

 which certainly possessed no true gular pouch ! All naturalists 

 will be contented if a really scientific and unbiassed man — such, 

 for example, as Professor Giebel of Halle — will institute new re- 

 searches and report the results ; and he lives in what, if I mistake 

 not, is the very focus of the Great Bustard^s German range. 



