368 ALUCO STRIDULUS. 



cere is rather long, bare above and anteriorly, but com- 

 pletely concealed, as is the greater part of the bill, by 

 the long bristly feathers from its base ; its margins 

 convex before the nostrils, and passing obliquely do\vn- 

 wards. 



The mouth is very wide, the palate flattened, with 

 a short central and two long lateral prominent soft lines 

 converging forwards ; upper mandible soft within until 

 near the tip, and having numerous soft rounded pro- 

 minences ; lower deeply concave, with a narrow central 

 elevated ridge. The oesophagus is wide, nearly uni- 

 form in diameter, five inches long, gradually dilated 

 below at its junction with the stomach, where it is 

 glandular all round. The stomach is large, its muscu- 

 lar coat very thin, but with distinct fasciculated fibres ; 

 the central tendons very thin and small, about five- 

 twelfths across, the anterior larger. The pylorus is 

 closed by a thin valvular margin. The intestine is 

 twenty-two inches long, wider at the commencement, 

 where it is for some inches thicker than a goose quill, 

 being four-twelfths in diameter, gradually contracted 

 to two-twelfths, and slightly enlarged near the cceca ; 

 after which it continues of the same size, but dilates as 

 it approaches the globular cloaca. The coeca come off 

 at the distance of three inches from the .anus ; in the in- 

 dividual here described, one was three inches and two- 

 twelfths long, the other two inches and two-twelfths, 

 both for half their length two-twelfths in diameter, but 

 enlarged towards the end into an oblong sac four- 

 twelfths in its greatest diameter. 



The nostrils are medial, near the ridge, roundish, in 

 the fore edge of the cere, which bulges out a little be- 



