78 Sir E. Home's Description of the solvent Glands, C^c. 



be readily filled and emptied at the will of the bird : upon exa- 

 mination after death, this bag was found to contain air, and to 

 be unconnected with the organs of digestion, or the trachea 

 which passes down along the middle of its cavity ; it commu- 

 nicates by a large oval aperture with the air cells on the 

 posterior part of the neck, and through them receives air from 

 the lungs. The two species of casowary, Casuarius Emu, and 

 the long-legged casowary from New South Wales, differ from 

 one another in the form of their digestive organs, as well as 

 in the length of their intestines. 



In the Casuarius Emu, the solvent glands are oval bags one 

 fourth of an inch long and only one- sixteenth of an inch wide; 

 they occupy the whole surface of the cardiac cavity which is very 

 large, and they are all placed nearly in a transverse direction 

 respecting the cavity, the orifices of the excretory duct appear- 

 ing very distinctly through the membrane which lines the car- 

 diac cavity. The gizzard is nearly of the strength of that of the 

 ^crow, but has a thicker cuticular lining. This cuticle extends 

 beyond the cavity of the gizzard both above its orifice and 

 downwards towards the duodenum. The most remarkable cir- 

 cumstance respecting the gizzard, is its being situated out of the 

 direction of the cardiac cavity, forming a pouch on the posterior 

 part, and having before it an open channel lined with cuticle, 

 along which the food can readily pass into the duodenum with- 

 out being received into the gizzard, as in other birds. At the 

 commencement of the duodenum there is a broad valve, upon 

 the edge of which the cuticular lining of the cavity of the 

 gizzard terminates. The duodenum, at its origin, swells out 

 into an oval cavity four inches long, and two and an half in 

 diameter; it then contracts to one inch and a half in dia- 



