50



Mr. Albert Pam,



night, when many are caught by weasels and other small quadru¬

peds.”


Besides the common towhee there are about fourteen other

kinds of towhees in North America, as, for example, the Oregon

towhee, Canon towhee, and Green-tailed towhee. The one which

most closely resembles that of the Eastern States is the White-eyed

towhee, found in summer from the coastal country of North Carolina

southward through Florida.



GRASS UNDER SWANS’ TONGUES.


By Albert Pam.


For some time past I had noticed that two of my black¬

necked swans were developing a curious pouch-like swelling under

their lower mandible. This “ pouch ” increased in size gradually

until it looked like a semi-circular distended sack of pink and veined

skin, having a depth of about one inch. I could not make it out :

it seemed quite natural and almost normal in appearance and did not

seem to affect the birds in any way; yet my third black-necked had

no such “ pouch ” nor had any of my Coscoroba swans or other

waterfowl. I looked in vain for any similar swelling in the black¬

necked swans at the Zoo, and eventually discussed the matter with

Mr. Seth-Smith. I must confess that I thought I had imported

some variety of these swans having a natural “ pouch ” below the

beak.


Last week Mr. Seth-Smith came to look at my waterfowl

and I showed him the two swans, which are quite tame and regularly

walk up to the house for some special food. He examined them

with much interest and was as much at a loss to account for the

“ pouch ” as I, but said that he had never seen or heard of any

variety of the typical black-necked swan. We at last agreed that

the only thing to do was to catch one of the birds and examine the

swelling ; this was quite easy to do and in a few minutes we had

caught one and opened its beak. To our surprise, we found under

the tongue a hard black mass, which with some difficulty we ex¬

tracted and washed out the then empty “ pouch ” with boracic, as

it was slightly sore. We then treated the other bird the same way.



