1868.] DR. J. MURIE ON THE GULAR POUCH OF OTIS. 47.1 



roxysms has been reached. Each day afterwards they lessen, until 

 as July arrives the Bustard has resumed his usual gentle habits. 



The accession of this most remarkable display occurs chiefly early 

 in the morning or at sundown during the period of excitement ; and 

 it is only near the climax that it happens during the middle of the 

 day. At such times the fits succeed each other frequently, as often 

 as every hour. 



Curiously enough, the companion (Otis australis) which arrived 

 in the same month of 1866, and is supposed also to be a male, has 

 never exhibited any such change in its habits. 



I should be doing injustice to Prof. Newton's excellent commu- 

 nication did I not specially refer to the circumstance mentioned 

 {ibid. p. 114) — that Mr. J. H. Grurney informed him the late Mr. 

 Frederick Strange had published a notice in an Australian newspaper 

 affirming that the Otis australis possessed a gular pouch. Mr. 

 Strange, then, is entitled to priority of observation ; but as regards 

 his statements concerning the organs in question I am, like Prof. 

 Newton, perfectly ignorant of them. 



Notes on other Bustards. — Before drawing inferences from the 

 facts which I have first related, I shall allude to an examination of 

 two other species of Bustard made by me. One was a Little Bustard 

 {Tetrax campestris), an old male, possessed by the Society, and 

 which died on the 17th September, 1867. No gular pouch was 

 found in this bird. The other, a young male Houbara Bustard 

 (Otis houbara, Gm.), examined on the '22iid of the same montb, 

 exhibited not a trace of a gular sac. 



The peculiar actions and amorous propensities of the Great Bus- 

 tard (0. tarda), noticed almost a century ago, and again and again 

 verified by later writers, and no less skilfully depicted by Wolf 

 (Zoological Sketches, vol. i. pi. 4.5), finds a modified counterpart in 

 Tetrax campestris and in Otis australis. 



Conclusions, — The present anatomical examination of the dimi- 

 nutive gular pouch in Otis kori cannot of itself in propriety be 

 adduced as evidence of any oeconomical function to which the sac 

 may be applied. The dissection, however, and observations on the 

 living Australian bird, «&;c., together with the pubhshed accounts of 

 others, concerning the presence and functions, or absence of such an 

 organ, have led me to the following reflections : — 



1. There is nothing in the structure of the gular pouch, in its 

 position, or in the habits of Bustards, so far as I am informed and 

 can judge, which justifies a belief that its use is that of a water-re- 

 servoir. I should therefore incline to Naumann's* and Yarrell'sf 

 opinion rather than that of the original discoverer Dr. Douglas^ 

 and some later writers. 



2. Its nature &c. equally affords grounds for considering that it 

 is not a residual sac for food ; the fact of a trifling quantity of 



* Naturgesch. der Vogel Deutschl. vii. pp. 20. 121 ; quoted bv Newton, Ibis, 

 18G2, p. 115. 



t In a letter to Newton, he. cit. p. 118. 



+ Albin, Xat. Hist. Birds, iii. p. 36; also quoted bv Nowtoii. /. c. p. 108. 



