NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



149 



manner, which 1 have not space here to describe. The thoracic 

 portion of the body is defended by a sort of cuirass, admirably 

 adapted to bear the weight of the superincumbent earth. The 

 anatomy of the mole-cricket has been thoroughly described by 

 Dr. Kidd, late Begius Professor at Oxford, Philos. Trans., 115, 

 (1825), p. '228. The preparations (611 and 784) of the Koyal 

 College of Surgeons show the anatomy of the mole- cricket. 

 The crop, instead of being a gradual dilatation of the oesophagus, 

 is appended to the side of that tube, like the crop of a fowl, and 

 a longer canal intervenes between it and the gizzard ; two large 

 csecal appendages open into the termination of the gizzard, from 

 which the true digestive stomach is continued. The liver is 

 represented by a great number, from 150 to 200, of minute but 

 long capillary creca which all unite into one common tube 

 or duct, which conveys the biliary secretion into the intestinal 

 canal, close to the pylorus. 



FLAMINGO, p. 248. PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE OLD STORY OF 

 THE PELICAN IN THE WILDERNESS FEEDING ITS YOUNG ON ITS 

 OWN BLOOD. When a boy at Winchester College I was always 

 much struck with the representations of the pelican feeding its 

 young with its own blood, which adorn the roof of the grand old 

 Cathedral at Winchester. Mentioning this one day to Mr. Bartlett, 

 he told me that he had discovered the origin of this story, and 

 he kindly gave me his observations in writing as follows : 



'' The facts I now lay before you appear to me to afford 

 a solution to the well-known and ancient story of the Pelican 

 in the Wilderness. I have heard that the so-called fable origin- 

 ated, or is to be found, on some of the early Egyptian monu- 

 ments (I do not know where), but that the representations are 

 more like flamingoes than pelicans. I have published in the 

 " Proceedings of the Zoological Society," March 1869, what I 

 consider to be the facts of the case. The flamingoes in the gar- 

 dens have frequently shown signs of breeding, and have been 

 supplied with heaps of sand to form their nests, but without 

 result ; nevertheless they appear to take considerable notice of 

 a pair of cariamas in the same aviary. These birds have a 

 habit' of bending back their heads, and with open gaping mouths 

 utter loud and somewhat distressing sounds. This habit at once 

 attracts the flamingoes, and very frequently one or more of them 

 advance towards the cariamas, and standing erect over the bird., 

 by a slight up and down movement of the head, raise up into 

 its mouth a considerable quantity of red-coloured fluid, which, as 

 soon as the upper part of the throat and mouth becomes filled, 

 it will drop or run down from the corners of the flamingo's 



