150 MR, W. H. FLOWER ON BUCEROS CoRRUGATUS. [Mar. 11, 
The following papers were read :— 
1. Note on a Substance ejected from the Stomach of a Horn- 
bill (Buceros corrugatus). By W. H. Furower, F.R.S. &e. 
The body described by Mr. Bartlett and Dr. Murie at the last 
Meeting of the Society*, and placed in my hands for further exami- 
nation, consists of a sac of somewhat globular form, and averaging 
an inch and three-quarters in diameter. On one side it has a large 
ragged aperture, the margins of which are folded inwards so as to 
close the orifice. Its walls are thin, slightly plicated, moderately 
tough and consistent, though torn without difficulty, translucent, 
and of a dark brown colour. The margins of the aperture are softer 
and of a paler colour. 
The contents of this sac are perfectly non-adherent to it and 
readily removed. They consist of sixteen raisins in an undigested 
condition, mostly with their skins broken, packed pretty closely 
together and somewhat softened; but as the specimen had become 
partially dry before it was procured, and has been for several months 
in spirit, their exact condition at the time of ejection cannot now be 
ascertained. Among the raisins were a few flakes of the same ma- 
terial as that of which the sac was composed. 
A superficial examination led at once to the belief that it consisted 
of the entire epithelial lining of the gizzard; and a closer investiga- 
tion, aided by comparison with the gizzard of the bird which ejected 
it, removed after death and preserved by Dr. Murie, corroborated 
this view. 
The muscular coat of this gizzard is thin, almost membranous ; 
and the epithelial lining forms a layer of nearly uniform thickness, 
having no specially thickened lateral triturating disks as in gra- 
nivorous birds. It, moreover, peels off from the subjacent fibro- 
vascular coat (from the follicles in which it is secreted) with great 
facility. In this instance numerous small nematode worms had 
lodged themselves beneath it. 
Making allowance for the drying and subsequent hardening in 
spirit that the former has undergone, the microscopic structure of 
the ejected sac and of the epithelial layer which lined the stomach 
of the bird at the time of its death are identical. Both swell up and 
become more transparent when treated with liquor potasse ; both 
turn a bright yellow colour with nitric acid. Sections of both pre- 
sent a matrix slightly laminated, with scattered nuclei and granules. 
I was not able to detect in either the definite structure ascribed to 
the epithelial stratum of the gizzard of granivorous birdst; only 
near the attached surface, where the secretion is most recent, a 
parallel striation was observed in vertical sections of both. 
The specimens have, through the kindness of Dr. Murie and 
Mr. Bartlett, been placed in the Museum of the Royal College of 
Surgeons. 
* See P. Z. 8. 1869, p. 142. T See P. Z. S. 1860, p. 330. 
