1875.] ON THE TRACHEA IN STORKS AND SPOONBILLS. 297 
3. On the Form of the Trachea in certain Species of Storks 
and Spoonbills. By A. H. Garrop, B.A., F.Z.S., 
Prosector to the Society. 
[Received March 15, 1875.] 
No account of the peculiarities of the windpipe in Tantalus ibis and 
in Platalea ajaja has yet, to the best of my knowledge, appeared in 
print. They cannot but interest ornithologists; I therefore append 
descriptions of them from specimens which have passed through my 
hands as Prosector to the Society. 
In the Transactions of the Linnean Society * there is a paper by 
Mr. Joshua Brookes, F.R.S., “On the remarkable Formation of the 
Trachea in the Egyptian Tantalus.” The author does not mention 
the sex of his specimen, and does not refer to the existence of any 
intrathoracic or any other loops; he draws attention only to the 
existence of a lateral compression of the portion of the trachea which 
is contained within the thorax; and he incidentally refers to the 
similarity of the arrangement of the windpipe in the Spoonbill and 
Tantalus ibis, but does not hint at the points in which they agree. 
In most species of Ciconiide the only peculiarity of the windpipe 
is that the bronchi are longer than in other birds, the bifurcation of 
the trachea occurring at, or even a little above, the superior aperture 
of the thorax. This condition I have observed in the female Ciconia 
boyciana which died on January 15th, 1874, as well as in examples 
of C. maguari and C. alba. In the male of C. nigra the bronchi are 
known to be peculiarly long, and to form an w-shaped curve enter- 
ing the lungs. No other peculiarities have been described among 
these birds. 
A specimen of Tantalus ibis was purchased by the Society on the 
26th of May, 1873, which died on the 12th of March, 1875. It 
proved to bea male. The following is the arrangement of the convo- 
lutions of its trachea (see figure, p. 298). The windpipe descends 
the neck in front of the cesophagus without any peculiarities being 
observable, the rings which go to compose it being exactly like those 
of other allied birds, circular, complete, elastié, notched in the middle 
line before and behind, and of ordinary depth. Directly it reaches 
the superior aperture of the thorax, between the two rami of the 
furcula, a sudden change occurs. The succeeding rings are inelastic, 
from being ossified ; and they are ossified together in pairs, so that 
their apparent depth is more than double that of the cervical rings, 
the intermediate membrane being included in the double rings. The 
depth of the unmodified rings is hardly more than zz of an inch, 
that of the intrathoracic modified ones being as much as q of an 
inch. The diameter of both is about 3 of an inch; those in the 
chest are further peculiar in developing a slight median longitudinal 
ridge along their posterior surface. 
The two musculi depressores trachea, after running down the 
* Vol. xvi. p. 499. 
+ Naumann’s Naturgeschichte der Vogel Deutschlands, vol. ix. p- 229. 
