Birds. 9597 



bone refuse in pellets; bones pass through the whole intestinal canal 

 and into the coecal sacs preparatory to ejection downwards. The 

 sternum of this diver affords an interesting example of structural 

 adaptation ; its floor is extended backwards into a broad median lobe, 

 which forms a comfortable, and indeed necessary, support for the 

 strong heavy gizzard and its load of fish. As an instance of the per- 

 sistence of apparently delicate animal tissue, I noted the occurrence, in 

 the cloaca, of a fish's eye-lens, which had passed through digestive 

 operations unscathed, and was fresh and bright as if just from the ball, 

 while strong bones had been ground and dissolved to pulp. Two of 

 the fish within the gullet afforded me from their stomachs good 

 specimens of Lacuna vincta and Accra bullata. 



Goldeneye. — A single male specimen of this duck offered itself on 

 the 6th of March. The species makes but angel's visits to us. This 

 bird's last bill of fare is somewhat curious ; nine young eels, forty-eight 

 Lymnsea peregra, three L. stagnalis, six caddis-worms of four species, 

 an entree of fresh-water shrimps with " fixins" of earthworms, larvae of 

 gnat, larvae of dragon-fly and grit — all marsh food. 



Gannet. — For three weeks we have been inundated with these 

 birds, and grown quite accustomed to see the stalls festooned with 

 their long wings and necks by scores. In former years they have been 

 comparatively kw in number and proportionally high in price. Will 

 those correspondents of the ' Zoologist' who have opportunities 

 of observing the living bird tell us something of its modes of life ? 

 That it is a bird of strong, rapid and sustained flight is patent in the 

 structure of the wing ; that it strikes its prey from above, like the gull, 

 is inferable from the tremendous power of the neck, and that it can 

 also follow its victims beneath the surface appears to me not only from 

 its wing-like foot, but from the great size and muscularity of its tail ; 

 but there are other points of structure whose relations are not so 

 readily traced. What, for example, is the office of the pectinated 

 middle claw in this and other birds ? 



Willow Ptarmigan. — Abundant of late, but almost all shamefully 

 mutilated by the removal of both wings. Truly the feminine greed of 

 decoration has much to answer for to the ornithologist. The black 

 line from eye to beak is usually given as distinguishing the male from 

 the female : I have found the indication reversed. 



Charles W, Devis. 



Manchester, April 8, 1865. 



