746 mr. j. wood-mason on the [June 1 8, 



but rich, purring call which, with breast puffed out, it was uttering — 

 a call perceptible to the hand no less than to the ear. I at once re- 

 cognized the smaller and less conspicuously coloured birds as speci- 

 mens of one sex ; and there seemed very little doubt, from its perfect 

 correspondence in structure and general similarity in plumage, that 

 the larger and handsomer one was an individual of the other sex of 

 the Indian Painted Snipe (Rhynchcea capensis, sive benffalensis); 

 but which of the two was the female and which the male, it must be 

 confessed, I was at the time ignorant. In order that I might be 

 enabled to determine the precise relation of the two forms to one 

 another, and to ascertain whether any structural differences in their 

 vocal organs accompanied the observed differences in their vocal 

 powers — merely that I might know these facts of my own knowledge, 

 certainly without the slightest hope or thought that I should be able, 

 from such a cursory examination as alone I could give to it, to glean 

 any thing new about so common an animal, I purchased a pair of 

 the species. 



Before killing the birds for examination, I referred to Darwin's 

 ' Descent of Man' 1 ; and what I read therein served but to increase 

 my interest in the matter ; for I soon saw that I had it in my power 

 to corroborate or to contradict a statement which had been made 

 about the trachea of this very species — the very part, curiously 

 enough, the sounds issuing from which had drawn my attention to 

 the bird. 



It is well known that in many birds the windpipe, instead of 

 taking a straight course from the rinia ylottidis through the inter- 

 clavicular membrane to the point where it bifurcates to form the 

 bronchi, is bent upon itself or convoluted, and that often to an ex- 

 traordinary extent. The position of such flexures is very variable: 

 " they may lie outside the thorax under the integument (as in Tetrao 

 uroya/lus, some species of Crax and Penelope, and, I may add, the 

 Manucodias 2 and the Rhynchseas), in the cavity of the thorax (as in 

 some Spoonbills), on the exterior of the sternum (as in some Swans 

 and Cranes), or even in a sort of cup formed by the median process of 

 the furcula (as in a species of Guinea-fowl) " 3 . The increase in the 

 length of the tracheal column implied by these convolutions, and 

 other modifications of the windpipe, such as the swollen tympanum of 

 Ducks and Geese, the air-sac of the Emu, may be dependent wholly 

 upon sex ; and the males may have the trad xmore or less looped or 

 more complex, whilst the female:; i;ave \ .'ip;ht or simple, or only 

 partially so, in which case the flex: ■ :*: vv 4fr ;t; modification may be 

 more marked in males than in feuii-lw. Bur. however this may be, 

 it is a general rule that whenever ' the trachea differs in structure 

 in the two sexes it is more developed and complex in the male than 

 in the female" 4 ; and it is a fact familiar to all that in the vast 

 majority of instances it is the male which, in point of richness of 

 plumage, vocal powers, and ornamental appendages, is the more highly 



1 Op. cif. p. 476. 2 'Nature,' vol. xv. p. 127. 



3 Huxley, ' Anatomy of Yertebrated Animals,' p 315. 

 * ' Descent of Man,' I. supra cit. 



