424 STRUTHIONID^E. 



or bag to hold fresh water, which supplies the bird in 

 dry places when distant from waters ; the entrance into it 

 is between the under side of the tongue and the lower 

 mandible of the bill. I poured into this bag, before the 

 head was taken off, full seven wine pints (which about 

 equals seven pounds of our common weight) before it run 

 over. This bag is wanting in the hen." There is, how- 

 ever, some reason to doubt whether this is really the use 

 to which the pouch is applied, since it is mentioned by 

 Bewick that one of these birds, which was kept in a cara- 

 van, among other animals as a show, lived without drink- 

 ing. It was fed with leaves of cabbages, and other greens, 

 and also with flesh and bread. 



The figure and the descriptions here given are taken 

 from a very fine pair of these birds in the Museum of the 

 Zoological Society. 



The adult male has the beak clay brown ; the irides 

 hazel ; the head and the upper part of the neck greyish 

 white ; from the chin, passing backwards and downwards 

 on each side, there is a tuft or plume about seven inches 

 long, directed across and partly concealing a vertically 

 elongated strip of bare skin of a bluish grey colour ; the 

 lower part of the neck behind, the back, upper tail-coverts 

 and tail-feathers, of an ochreous yellow or pale chestnut, 

 barred transversely with black ; the tail-feathers tipped 

 with white ; the wing-coverts and tertials white ; the 

 primaries black, with white shafts ; neck in front, the 

 breast, all the under surface of the body, the thighs, 

 and under tail- coverts white ; under surface of the tail- 

 feathers barred transversely with dusky grey ; legs, toes, 

 and claws, brown. 



The whole length of the male bird forty-five inches. 

 From the carpal joint to the end of the wing, twenty-four 



