8o Sir E. Home's Description of the solvent Glands, &c. 



of a very small size; the gizzard so situated as only to be used 

 occasionally; the small intestines five feet long, two inches in 

 diameter, and the great intestine one foot long, making in all 

 six feet; and two cseca, each of them six inches in length, one- 

 fourth of an inch in diameter. The Casowary of New South 

 Wales, a less fertile country than Java, has larger solvent 

 glands, a stronger gizzard placed under the same circum- 

 stances ; the small intestines one inch and a quarter in diameter 

 and ten feet seven inches long ; the large, two inches in dia- 

 meter, thirteen inches long, in all thirteen feet; the cseca two 

 inches long, and half an inch in diameter. 



The Rhea Americana, a native of South x\merica, where its 

 food is not abundant, has solvent glands of an unusually com- 

 plex form, and a strong gizzard, so placed that every part of 

 the food must be triturated in it. The small intestines one inch 

 in diameter, ten feet seven inches long ; the large intestine 

 one inch and a quarter in diameter, one foot eight inches long, 

 in all twelve feet three inches ; but to these are added two 

 caeca, each of them three feet ten inches, and two inches in 

 diameter at the widest part. 



The Struthio Camelus of Africa, which in the Desert has a 

 very precarious subsistence, has solvent glands of the same 

 structure as in the Rhea Americana, but much more numer- 

 ous ; a much stronger gizzard, so situated that the food must 

 undergo a previous trituration before it can arrive at it; the 

 small intestines one inch and a half in diameter, and twenty- 

 seven feet long; the large intestine two inches in diameter, 

 and forty-five feet three inches long, in all seventy-two feet 

 three inches ; and two cseca three inches in diameter at the 

 widest part, and each two feet nine inches long. 



