1870. ] ANATOMY OF THREE KINGFISHERS, 281 
portunities of examining specimens of Ceryle stellata, which is not 
uncommon in these dreary regions, and may frequently be observed 
perched on the branch of a tree overhanging the water, keeping a 
vigilant look-out for its fiuny prey. It occasionally utters a harsh 
stridulant note, and appears to be a bird of a bold disposition, an 
individual on more than one occasion having alighted on the lower 
rigging of the ship and remained there composedly for some time. 
While skinning a specimen shot at Port Otway in the Gulf of 
Pefias, in the month of April 1868, my attention was arrested by 
what appeared to me a peculiarity in one of the superficial muscles 
of the back of the neck, 7. e. the biventer cervicis. This muscle, 
which I have had an opportunity of examining in a variety of birds 
of different orders, generally differentiates itself from the other 
spinal muscles at the lower portion of the cervical region, and, ex- 
tending throughout the entire extent of the neck, is inserted into a 
prominent ridge on the occiput. As a rule it consists of an upper 
and lower muscular portion or belly separated by an intermediate 
strong tendon of varying extent. The greatest part of this tendon, 
as well as the lower muscular portion, is finely bound down along 
the back of the spine by a strong aponeurotic sheath, which, how- 
ever, permits of a free gliding motion within it. Of the two muscular 
portions, the lower, according to Meckel, who has described some of 
the principal modifications of this muscle in the third volume of his 
‘System der vergleichenden Anatomie,’ is much the larger; but 
this is not the case in the Kingfishers, according to my observations. 
On carefully dissecting the muscles in several specimens of Ceryle stel- 
lata, I found that the corresponding muscles of opposite sides were 
united at the junction of the tendon with the upper muscular por- 
tion by a narrow but strong transverse tendon (see Plate XXIV. 
fig. 1), and that, in addition to this, a strong membrano-tendinous 
junction was likewise present between them at their insertion into 
the occiput. As I had never observed this connexion between the 
opposite muscles in any of the other birds examined by me, I was 
anxious to procure specimens of some other species of Kingfishers 
in order to ascertain whether the like peculiarity obtained in them 
also ; and this I have been enabled to do through the kindness of my 
friend Mr. Sharpe, who has furnished me with specimens of our 
common Kingfisher (d/cedo ispida) and the Laughing Jackass of 
Australia (Dacelo gigas). On dissecting an example of the former 
of these birds (shot in the beginning of February of this year), I found 
that a considerable space, filled with fat, intervened between the 
biventer of each side, and that there was no trace of a tendinous 
union between them (see Plate XXIV. fig. 3); further that the 
aponeurotic sheath binding down the lower portion of the muscle to 
the spine was very feebly developed. In the latter bird (Plate XXIV. 
fig. 2) the muscles lay closer together, and there was a very strong 
aponeurotic sheath, but no tendinous connexion. It is therefore 
not improbable that this may be either a generic or specific pecu- 
liarity ; how arising, or for what purpose provided, 1 am not prepared 
to say. 
