316 NATURAL SCIENCE [November 
plumes allongées qui s’y implantent. A la fin de juillet, elle com- 
mence a s/affaisser, les plumes tombent, se renouvellent, si bien 
quwavant la fin de septembre il ne reste plus rien de cette grande 
masse de tissu cellulaire.” Owen, a year previously, had dissected a 
specimen, said to have been a male,! apparently for this purpose, and 
found “no trace of a gular pouch,” thus so far confirming Degland: 
Mitchell, Yarrell, and later, Professor Newton, all searched carefully 
for this pouch, and failed to find it ; neither could they discover any 
opening under the tongue. The latter thus describes his search :— 
“We cleared the skin away from the entire neck. . . . The neck 
was entirely clothed with cellular tissues in a most remarkable 
manner ; they were very delicate, and so close to the skin, that even 
when we grazed the roots of the feathers we occasionally cut them. 
On the blowpipe being inserted into one of the apertures thus made, 
a small bubble was immediately raised, which increased on greater 
power, being applied so as to form a considerable bag, perhaps three 
inches long,... it was plain... that none of these bags existed of 
themselves, but were the result of the membranes being forcibly 
ruptured by the pressure of the air.” 
Thus, then, at this time, so far as English ornithologists were 
concerned, the case for the existence of a gular pouch in the Bustard 
had fallen through for lack of evidence. There seemed to be no 
other way of explaining the facts advanced by the older writers than 
that of supposing the‘ pouch’ which they saw was artificial, caused by 
the rupture of cellular tissues. Unless indeed it was, as some sug- 
gested possible, present in some individuals, but not in others. ‘That 
the specimens dissected in England, says Professor Newton (14), “were 
not all young, undeveloped birds, is also clear ; but if any further evi- 
dence on this point is required, I would refer to the beautiful picture 
by Mr Wolf (fig. 1), which was drawn from an individual in our 
Zoological Gardens,—an individual afterwards the subject of one of 
the examinations here mentioned, though of which is not certain. 
No one who looks at that picture ... can for a moment doubt 
that the original was a truly adult, mature, and fully developed bird. 
Dr Cullen (3), inspired by Professor Newton’s article (14), 
published the results of an examination of two males procured by 
him in Kustendjie, Bulgaria. In both of these a pouch wag found, 
the largest of which he figured. The “ opening under the tongue,” 
he writes, “is large enough to admit readily the little finger, and is 
surrounded by what has all the appearance of a sphineter-muscle . . . 
the pouch extended as far down as the furcular bone, enveloped 
closely throughout by a thin muscular covering exactly analogous in 
structure to the cremaster or platysma hyoides. The structure of the 
sac . . . is certainly not composed of cellular tissue as stated by 
1 Garrod suggested that this was probably a female. 
