No. 1.] SPEOTYTO CUNICULARIA HYPOGAZA. 123 
partly digested condition. The thickest part of the wall of the 
gizzard is about 4 millimetres; this is at its posterior aspect, 
and quite near the proventriculus. Coues has stated (Key, 2d 
ed., p. 498) that the Owls have “short and wide intestines,” but 
not so, judging from the specimen before me, the Burrowing 
Owl, Speotyto, as in it the intestine is of unusually small calibre, 
and very long, measuring from stomach to anus no less than 39 
centimetres. Each coeca has a large bulbous extremity though 
its pedicle is very slender; it measures 3.4 centimetres, and it 
springs from the intestinal tube (at the same point with its fel- 
low), 4.6 centimetres above the anal opening.! 
Other organs and parts presented in the economy of this Owl 
were examined quite in detail by the writer, but nothing of very 
great import was discovered, beyond what is common to the 
morphology of the group as a whole. The specimen chiefly used 
by me in these dissections was extraordinarily fat, especially at 
the root of the neck, and overlying the flanks, and lower part of 
the dorsum and abdomen. 
This Owl, in common with some other S¢riges, has an antero- 
posterior foraminal perforation through either coracoid, a fact 
which I pointed out in my memoir in the Osteology of the bird, 
and I further said there, that “this foramen transmits a branch 
of that cervical nerve coming from between the twelfth and 
thirteenth cervical vertebre.”? More strictly speaking, I find 
upon reéxamination, that although I have given the nerve’s exit 
correctly, in reality it is the anterior branch of the brachial 
plexus, and after passing through the aforesaid foramen in the 
shaft of the corresponding coracoid, from behind, forwards, it 
is distributed to the pectoralis secundus muscle, following its 
tendon on the aspect next the body of the sternum, while the 
minute nerve-fibres branch up among the fibres of the muscle. 
This same interesting condition obtains in Aubo virginianus, 
and some Hawks of the genus Auzteo. 
1 Both the intestine and mesentery in this specimen of Sfeoty¢o had sparsely sprin- 
kled over them, sometimes in groups of four or five, and sometimes singly, little ovoid 
bodies about the size of No. 10 shot, pure white in color, and having all the appear- 
ances of lime-like deposits in the tissues where found. 
2 SHUFELDT, R. W., Contributions to the Anatomy of Birds, p. 612. 
