VOL. LVI,} PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 333 



for which it is difficult to assign a reason in any of the pheasant kinds, if it be 

 not to retain inspired air longer than ordinary on some occasions, though they 

 are not frequenters of rivers or marshy grounds; which one might reasonably 

 suggest from the great capacity in the plicated parts of the windpipe. 



The next he mentions is the Grus Numidica, Numidian crane, or Demoiselle. 

 This bird has likewise a plication in the windpipe, which was also dissected by the 

 Academy of Sciences, in whose account the natural history of it may be seen; 

 and a true description and figure of it from the life, by Mr. Edwards, in his 

 Natural History of Birds. Dr. P. confines himself only to the configuration of 

 this point, in as many animals as he can find endowed with such a structure, in 

 order to collect them, and lay them here in view: and will hereafter make further 

 researches and dissections, in such as he may reasonably suppose to have a 

 different formation from the common standard of a straight windpipe. In this 

 bird, being of the crane kind, the pipe runs down in company with the oeso- 

 phagus, to about a foot in length, and then turns outwards and forwards, as 

 it does in the swan and crane, and enters into the keel of the sternum, which, 

 like the others, forms a bony box for its reception, through a ligamentous hole 

 for about 3 inches: then it returns upwards, and a round turn into the thorax 

 terminating in bronchia and lungs. Now, in the Indian cock mentioned, the 

 plication is made above the sternum, in a roomy part between the jugal bones; 

 whereas, in the others mentioned, the plication is within the keel of the sternum. 



The other birds he finds any account of, having the asperia arteria folded, are 

 only 2, and of these our information is very short. In Dr. Fryer's account of 

 India and Persia, where he treats of his description of Surat and his journey into 

 Duccan, p. 1 IQ, is found the following passage: " Fish, oysters, soles, and Indian 

 mackerel, the river yields very good; and the pools and lakes store of wild fowl: 

 particularly brand geese, colum, and serass, a species of the former; in the cold 

 weather, they, shunning the northern rigid blasts, come yearly hither from 

 mount Caucasus; what is worth taking notice of, is their asperia arteria wound 

 up in a case on both sides their breast-bone, in manner of a trumpet, such as 

 our waits use: when it is single, it is a serass; when double, it is a colum, 

 making a greater noise than a bittern, being heard a great while before they can 

 be seen, flying by armies in the air." 



From this passage, it is plain that our author had examined the interior parts 

 of this colum and serass, and that they are different species of the same genus. 

 We can only however endeavour to find what this genus is; and, by what we 

 have heard of the crane, it is not improbable that they are of that kind. The 

 crane, by every author, is said to take long flights in vast multitudes; and to 

 make a great noise in the air. The colum and serass are said to come to the 

 rivers and lakes about Surat or Duccan from Caucasus, flying in armies, and 



