838 MR. F. K. BEDDARD ON THE [NoV. 17, 



character recalling the claw on the hand of Archceoptei-yx ; but 

 the same thing exists among the Carinatae. Prof. Paricer, in his 

 •Davis' Lecture delivered at the Society's Gardens on June 18th 

 of the present year, remarked that the Swan is similarly furnished 

 with two claws. Prof. Parker has also mentioned the fact tiiat 

 Chuuna is provided with a claw upon the first and second digits 

 of the hand\ Moreover, Mhea has only one. There is one 

 structure, however, which does not seem to be repeated in other 

 birds ; the barbs of the feathers in the Ratitse are disconnected and 

 not united by barbules. It seems, however, to be within the bounds 

 of possibility that this is an acquired character, and due more to 

 degeneration than to the retention of an embryonic structure. In 

 flying birds the barbs of the feathers are united, and the whole feather 

 thus offers a greater resistance to the air, and contributes to sustain- 

 ing the bird in the air — it acts in fact like a parachute ; in running 

 birds such a structure would be useless ; hence it disappears and the 

 condition characteristic of the Ostriches is arrived at. 



Without pretending to have exhausted the subject, I may point out 

 that the foregoing recapitulation of some recently acquired results, 

 all tend to show tiiat the Struthiones are not so isolated a class of 

 birds as was at one time thought, and that in fact there are hardly 

 any, if, indeed, any characters that absolutely distinguish the Stru- 

 thiones from other existing birds. 



In an interesting paper on the " Respiratory Organs of Apteryx" 

 to which reference has already been made. Prof. Huxley draws 

 attention to certain points of resemblance between Crocodiles and 

 birds. " As in birds, the liver lies between the stomach and the 

 pericardium, and has a peculiar peritoneal investment shut off from 

 the great sac of the abdomen ; and, as in tiie Ostrich, the whole 

 circumference of the stomach is united by fibrous tissue with the 

 parietes," &c. This passage attracted my attention, and I have endea- 

 voured to investigate the stomach, liver, and intestines of other birds 

 with a view of ascertaining whether the Ostrich is really more like 

 the Crocodile than is any otiier bird iu the disposition of its viscera. 

 The result has been to show that the Ostrich, and for the matter of 

 that such of the other Struthiones as I have had the opportunity 

 of studying, are not peculiar in the disposition of their abdominal 

 viscera. In the course of my studies I have come across other facts 

 in the disposition of the viscera, which appear to me v/ortb recording 

 and which I include in the present paper because they throw some 

 light upon the same series of facts. 



Prof. W. N. Parker, in a note upon the " Respiratory Organs of 

 Rhea" has incidentally pointed out that in this bird, as in the Ostrich, 

 the abdominal viscera are separated and enclosed in three compart- 

 ments of the peritoneum ; the right lobe of the liver is shut off from 

 the left lobe, and from the rest of the viscera, into a chamber by itself ; 

 a left chamber includes the left lobe of the liver and the gizzard,- 

 while the intestines lie in a third chamber situated above as well as 

 behind these two anterior ones. 



1 P. Z. S. 1863, p. 515. 



