18!?9.] ON THE INTESTINAL CONVOLUTIONS IN BIRDS. 303 



the ocelli, a black spot on each side of the frontal ocellus, a black 

 stripe be.'ore it, and a short stripe bordering the inner orbits ; the 

 upper mouth-parts are also almost entirely black. Thorax buff, 

 transversely striated, witii a broad green stripe on each side of the 

 dorsal carina, and a narrower bronzed shoulder-stripe, showing green 

 in certain lights, beneath. Legs buff, clothed with long fine black 

 bristles ; femora with a black line beneath ; tarsi black. Abdomen 

 buff', bronzed above, except at the sutures. Wings hyaline, slightly 

 clouded at the tips; fore wings with 14 and hind wings with 15 

 postnodal cross-nervures ; pterostigma large, covering 3 or 3g cells. 



Hab. Sarawak, Borneo ( TVallacs). 



Appears to be allied to L. viridula, Ramb., but much larger. 



-i. On the Taxonomic Value of the Intestinal Convolutions 

 in Birds. By Hans Gadow, Ph.D., M.A., Strickland 

 Curator and Lecturer on the Advanced Morphology of 

 Vertebrata in the University of Cambridge. 



[Eeceived May 1, 1889.] 

 (Plate XXXII.) 



In 1S79 I published, in the ' Jenaische Zeitschrift ' \ t»o lengthy 

 articles on the digestive system of birds, and I laid particular stress 

 upon the convolutions of the small intestine, i. e. upon the mode in 

 which this part of the alimentary canal is stowed away in the 

 abdominal cavity. 



Accounts of these couvolutions are exceedingly meagre, and 

 this is all the more surprising as Cuvier long ago drew attention to 

 the remarkable diversity which prevails in the arrangement of the 

 intestinal folds. However, there are only a few dozen birds de- 

 scribed in his ' Lemons d' Anatomic Comparee,' no generalizing con- 

 clusions are drawn, and with few exceptions (.MacGilhvray) this 

 part of descriptive ornithotomy has slept ever since. 



My former researches were based upon the examination of about 

 200 different birds, an ample material, but not large enough to warrant 

 all the taxonomic conclusions which I then drew, especially as these 

 were marred by the fetters of certain antiquated traditions, now 

 fortunately superseded. 



In preparing the account of the alimentary canal of birds for 

 Bronn's ' Klassen und Ordnungen des Thierreichs,' I have recently 

 had occasion once more to take up this question on a much broader 

 basis and in a more elaborate way. 1 therefore take the oppor- 

 tunity to lay before the Society a condensed account of the taxonomic 

 value of the intestinal convolutions in birds. 



^ " Versucli einer vergleic-henden Anatomie des Verdaiiungssystemes der 

 Voegel," Jonaische Zeitschrift fur Naturvrissenschaft, xiii. pp. 92-117, 339-40-3, 

 pis. iv.-si. & svi. 



