NATATORES. 353 



numbers of them by spearing; and, says Leichardt, " It 

 seemed that they only spear them when flying, and always 

 crouch down when they see a flight of them approaching ; the 

 geese, however, know their enemies so well that they imme- 

 diately turn upon seeing a native rise and put his spear into 

 the throwing-stick : some of my companions asserted that 

 they had often seen them hit their object at the almost incre- 

 dible distance of two hundred yards;" an assertion which, 

 from what I have myself witnessed, I can readily believe. 



It is well known that many of the natatorial birds exhibit 

 very singular conformations of the trachea, but in no one 

 species are the convolutions and situation of this organ more 

 remarkable than in the present bird. " The trachea," says 

 Yarrell, in the fifteenth volume of the ' Linnean Transactions,' 

 p. 383, " is situated on the outside of the pectoral muscle, 

 under the skin, sufficiently raised under the wing that respi- 

 ration would not be impeded when the bird rested with its 

 breast on the ground, the parallel tubes being firmly attached 

 both to the muscle and the skin by cellular tissue. The 

 clavicle of the right side of the bird is of the usual character, 

 but that on the left is both shorter and wider, having an 

 aperture about the middle, the sides diverging with a pro- 

 jecting point on the inner side, to which the tube of the 

 trachea is firmly attached, about two inches above the bone of 

 divarication. The trachea lying on the left side of the bird, 

 the lower portion of the tube in its passage to the lungs 

 crosses the left branch of the furcula at a right angle, but be- 

 coming attached to this projection of the clavicle, receives 

 from the point described its centrical direction into the body. 

 The whole length of the windpipe is four feet eight inches." 

 In young birds the trachea is not nearly so much convoluted. 

 This curious structure of the trachea has also been noticed and 

 figured by Latham, on the 178th plate of his 'General 

 History of Birds,' vol. x. p. 295, above quoted. The speci- 

 mens from the north are somewhat smaller than those from 



VOL. II. 2 A 



