468 Information respecting Zoological & Botanical Travellers. 
knows, always originate from the ventral face of the digest- 
ive tube, whatever their position may be in the splanchnic 
cavity, and it is always on the ventral side of the pharynx 
that the opening of the glottis is found; it is the same with 
the Lepidosiren; and if the resemblance between the lungs of 
all these animals and the air-bladder of the Lepisostei and of 
the Amie was as great as Mr. Owen seems to think it is, we 
ought to find this same character of organic relationship be- 
tween the cesophagus and the bladder of these fish. Now it 
is quite the contrary, for the kind of pseudo-glottis which 
establishes the communication between this cellular pouch 
and the digestive tube originates from the dorsal face of the 
ceesophagus. There exists then a fundamental anatomical dif- 
ference between these parts, whatever else may be their phy- 
siological functions, and this difference furnishes a fresh ar- 
gument in favour of the opinion of those who consider the 
Lepidosiren as a Reptile. 
I shall also add, that in the Lepidosiren paradoxa the abdo- 
minal viscera which, for the most part, were wanting in the 
individuals dissected by M. Bischoff, greatly resembled those 
of the Lepidosiren annectens, whose structure Mr. Owen has 
made known. M. Bibron and myself have sought there in 
vain for the traces of a pancreas and of a spleen, and the spiral 
valve of the intestine appeared to us to be still more developed 
than in the Lepidosiren annectens. 
LV.—Information respecting Zoological and Botanicai 
Travellers. 
Tue expedition under Mr. Schomburgk, appointed at the expense of 
Government, to survey the boundaries of British Guiana, has sailed 
for Demerara. Messrs. Glascott, R.N., and Mr. Walton accompany 
it, the first as assistant-surveyor, the latter as artist; but unless we 
are misinformed, there is no naturalist or collector on the part of 
this country,—Mr. Richard Schomburgk, brother to the director of 
the expedition, going out as a naturalist at the expense of the Prus- 
sian government and by permission; and thus we fear that the 
whole fruits, so far as natural history is concerned, of an expedition 
carried into a rich and partly unknown country at British expense 
and under British protection, will be carried off to a foreign king- 
dom, for the want of a person to attend exclusively to that branch, 
and who could have accompanied the party at comparatively small 
expense, and under circumstances of advantage of which others have 
known how to availthemselves. There is time still to remedy this. 
The ‘‘ Niger expedition” will also sail in a short time. One of the 
commanders is already known to be an excellent draughtsman, and 
