OF THE SOUTHERN APTERYX. 279 
and within the larynz, there are two thinner membranous folds : a small but elongated 
process projects from the middle line of the under or anterior part of the upper larynz, 
towards the rima glottidis. Behind the glottis there are two square-shaped tumid pro- 
cesses, with their free margins directed backwards into the pharyna ; their texture is 
more glandular than the surrounding mucous membrane. The trachea corresponds in 
length with the neck, and preserves a nearly uniform diameter throughout its course ; 
it consists of small and entire cartilaginous rings,—in one specimen, 120,—in another, 
130 in number,—alternately overlapping and being overlapped at the sides when the tube 
is relaxed : they are also alternately narrower on one side and the other, but in a slight 
degree : they become gradually smaller to the last twenty rings, which are not connected 
so closely and rigidly together as in the Ostrich and Emeu. Remembering the cervical 
air-sac which projects through the ovate aperture discovered by Fremery’ in the anterior 
part of the trachea of the Emeu, and situated, as that accurate observer describes, between 
the fifty-third and sixty-second cartilaginous rings, I examined with care the trachea of 
the Apteryx, but without detecting any trace of an analogous structure in either sex. 
There is no lower larynz. The last two tracheal rings increase in breadth, and the 
bronchial rings are continued from them with only a slight diminution of thickness : 
a membrane closes the trachea below, and completes the bronchial rings at their under 
part : near the termination of the bronchie the cartilaginous hoops are incomplete above 
as well as below. Both circular and longitudinal muscular fibres enter into the struc- 
ture of the short bronchial tubes. 
The sterno-tracheales muscles (PL. LI. a, fig. 4. ; Pl. XLVIII. g, fig. 3.) arise, one from 
the inner surface of each coracoid bone. 
It is plain, from the fixed condition of the lungs, and from the space between the lungs 
and diaphragm being occupied by air-cells, that inspiration could not be effectually per- 
formed by the action of the diaphragm alone: but the structure and mobility of the an- 
terior parietes of the thorax indicate that it takes place in the Apteryz, as in other birds, 
by the sternum being depressed, and the angle between the vertebral and sternal ribs 
being increased. 
All the triangular muscles which converge to be inserted into the costal processes 
thus become muscles of inspiration, and more especially those which represent the ser- 
ratus magnus anticus, and which act from the true ribs as a fixed point below, upon the 
scapula above ; for by drawing down that bone they bear upon the sternum, through the 
medium of the coracoid ; and hence the necessity of strong and well-developed coracoid 
bones in a bird that otherwise could derive no particular advantage from the fixation 
of the scapula. The adherence to the ornithic type in the characteristic part of the os- 
seous structure due to the sternum, coracoids, and scapula, is thus not merely explicable 
' De Casuario Nove Hollandiz. 8yo, 1819. 
