28 R. W. SHUFELDT, 
species will have one of a most simple construction. This is well 
exemplified in the lower part of the trachea of Sarcidiornis melanonota, 
as described and figured by GARROD.!) 
Forges, who also paid considerable attention to the tracheae 
of birds, was the first to point out certain peculiarities of the 
trachea in the Erismaturinae.’) 
Fortunately for the science of avian anatomy, MACGILLIVRAY 
published, in Aupugon’s “Birds of America”, both descriptions and 
figures of these parts of the air passages, which ossify or present 
peculiar formations in the two sexes, of quite a number of North 
American ducks. The work is most carefully done, and by one who 
understood the structure of birds and the value of a comparative 
study of those structures in classification, which Aupuson certainly 
did not. These descriptions of the trachea in the Anseres by 
MaccıtLıvrAaY it will well repay the student of the anatomy of 
this group to investigate. 
The extraordinary convolutions and morphology generally of the 
tracheae in the Cygninae is too well known to be brought up 
here, beyond mentioning it. 
There are several excellent pages on this subject in the 
1) Garrop, A. H., On the form of the lower larynx in certain 
species of ducks, in: Proc. zool. Soc. London 1875, p. 151—156. We 
find here excellent figures and descriptions of the lower larynx of Sar- 
cidiornis melanoata ( et 9), Rhodonessa caryophyllacea (& et Q), Meto- 
piana peposaca (&, 2 views). The latter have a large, circular enlargement, 
just above the middle of the trachea, previously pointed out by Dr. P.L. 
SCLATER (in: Proc. zool. Soc. London, 1868, p. 145) as „a large bulbous 
expansion in the windpipe“. 
2) FORBES, W. A., Note on some points in the anatomy of an 
Australian duck (Biziura lobata), in: Proc. zool. Soc. London, 1882, 
p. 455—458 (figs. 1 and 2). In this paper he remarks that „In the 
non-development of a bulla, whether osseous or partly membraneous, 
and in the perfectly simple character of its trachea, Bixiura differs from 
all the forms of ordinary Ducks known to me, all the genera of these 
that have been as yet examined exhibiting, in the male sex, either one or 
other of (or, more rarely, both) these peculiarities. The condition of the 
male Biziura is nearly identical with that found in the females of other 
Ducks. Very probably it may be that characteristic of all the Eris- 
maturinae, of which, however, only Erismatura rubida has, so far as I 
know, been examined as regards this point. In that species the syrinx, 
judging from Maegillivray’s description (AUDUBON, Orn. Biography, Vol. 4, 
p- 331), is quite similar to that of Bixiura, there being no tympanum 
whatever, but simply a long box formed of several rings united.“ 
