396 THE ALBATROSS. 



edge of the bone, which membranous portion is 

 usually found wanting in the prepared skulls of 

 those birds. In the Larus or gull tribe, the flat- 

 ness of the cavities, and their extending over the 

 anterior part of the skull, so as nearly, if not 

 actually, to touch, seems a distinguishing mark 

 in that genus. In the booby, duck, and some 

 others, there is no depression, although the gland 

 exists, being situated over the orbit, merely on a 

 membranous projection. 



My brother, Mr. F. D. Bennett, exhibited, at 

 the meeting of the Zoological Society, on the 

 25tli of June, 1833, a dried preparation of the 

 upper larynx and adjoining parts of the Albatross, 

 {Dlomedea exulcms, Linn.) for the purpose of de- 

 monstrating the existence in that bird of an epi- 

 glottis ; and observed, " that the rima glottidis is 

 bounded by two elevated fleshy lips, which con- 

 sist of mucous membrane and some few muscular 

 fibres, and are armed with retroflexed spiculse. 

 These lips are in perfect contact at the hinder 

 part of the glottis when it is closed, but diverge 

 near their anterior part, so as to leave a triangu- 

 lar open space of about the size of a pea, the 

 edges of which are incapable of being approx- 

 imated to each other. In front of this triangular 

 aperture, and at some distance behind the tongue, 

 (to which it is connected by mucous membrane 



