ON OPISTHOCOMUS CRISTATUS. 171 



and digging these claws into or hooking on to whatever 

 they meet, the hand taking the form roughly sketched in 

 fig. 1. They have not the power of grasping anything be- 

 tween their finger and thumb. The specimen forwarded 

 with this paper, by means of these claws walked out 

 of a large calabash , which is a basin made out of the 

 skin of a gourd and has a smooth inside. 



When the wing is drawn in to the body and in a state 

 of rest the thumb and finger are parallel (fig. 2). 



The tongue is short, smooth and spear-shaped; the oe- 

 sophagus passes down the neck on the right side of the 

 wind-pipe to its root , where it dilates and passes in front 

 of that tube to the left side , where again bending on its 

 self and at the same time gradually getting smaller , it passes 

 into the chest on the right and behind the wind-pipe. The 

 second oesophagus is a little larger than the first. This 

 bend forms the crop (fig. 3). It passes through the chest 

 to the left side and again dilates, passing towards the 

 right side it becomes the stomach , which is thin- walled. 

 There is no gizzard. The duodenum takes its origin on 

 the spinal surface of the stomach one third of its length 

 from its right extremity, thus causing that end to be- 

 come a bag (fig. 4). The intestinal tube keeps the same 

 diameter until it reaches to within an inch and a half of 

 the anus, where that gut appears to meet it by dividing 

 into two blind sacks (fig. 5), which lie at each side of 

 the bowels. 



The whole intestinal canal contained a green pulpy mass 

 like some well pounded vegetable matter , and had the pe- 

 culiar smell of the adult bird. This green matter was 

 so finely ground down that it was impossible to tell whe- 

 ther it consisted of leaves or seeds. 



From the weak state of the jaws of this specimen , and 

 from the food in the crop being of the same consistance 

 as that contained in the stomach, and having as strong 

 a smell as that contained in the crop of an old bird exa- 

 mined at the same time , I am inclined to conclude that 



Notes from tlie Leyden IMuseuxu, "Vol. X. 



