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the most striking peculiarities, from which some idea may be gathered 

 of the importance of this performance. 



Besides four grinding teeth, one at each end of the two jaws, the 

 animal has two small pointed horny teeth upon the projecting part of 

 the posterior portion of the tongue, the points of which are directed 

 forwards. These, it is thought, are intended to prevent the food 

 from being pushed into the fauces during the process of mastication; 

 and such have as yet been observed in no animal except the fla- 

 mingo, which has a row of similar small teeth at each side of the 

 tongue. 



The fifth pair of nerves, which supplies the muscles of the face, 

 and extend to the membrane that covers the bills, were found un- 

 commonly large ; whence it is inferred that probably the sensibility of 

 the different parts of this bill is very great, and that being capable 

 of nice discrimination in its feeling, it answers in some respects the 

 purposes of a hand. 



A striking peculiarity is observed in the structure of the bones of 

 the chest. The scapulae, which are of an uncommon shape, are not 

 connected with the chest, but with a bone placed above the sternum, 

 the upper part of which answers the purpose of clavicles. The car- 

 tilages also of the ribs are not placed next the sternum but between 

 two portions, and about the middle of each rib : and the false ribs 

 have their cartilages terminated by thin bony scales, which, slide on 

 one another in the motions of the chest. From this singular con- 

 struction, it appears that the capacity of the chest can undergo a very 

 considerable degree of contraction and dilatation. 



On each of the hind legs of the male, at the setting on of the 

 heel, is a crooked, strong, sharp-pointed spur, which is retractile, but 

 may be considerably extended. Its use is conjectured to be the con- 

 fining the female in the act of copulation : but in nothing, perhaps, 

 does this animal differ more from the other quadrupeds than in the 

 parts of generation. Externally there is no appearance of these 

 organs in either sex, the orifice of the anus being a common opening 

 to the rectum and prepuce in the male, and to the rectum and vagina 

 in the female. The testicles are situated in the cavity of the abdo- 

 men, the glans penis is double, one part being directed to the right 

 and the other to the left. The female has no regularly formed ute- 

 rus, but towards the end of the vagina are two openings, each lead- 

 ing into a cavity resembling the horn of the uterus in quadrupeds, 

 but terminating in a fallopian tube, which opens into the capsule 

 of an ovarium. From various circumstances attending this singular 

 configuration, and from some analogy it bears to the similar organ 

 in birds, our author is inclined to believe that this animal will be 

 found to be oviparous in its mode of generation. 



