i 
1896.] INTESTINAL TRACT OF BIRDS. 157 
type. The wide gut is very short: the Colies, for instance, have 
shortest guts of any birds that I have examined; but the same 
general features are present in all. Rhytidoceros plicatus, for 
instance (fig. 23), shows the duodenum as a very wide irregular 
Fig. 23. 
Rhytidoceros plicatus ; intestinal tract. 
loop, with a pucker at its closed end. The circular part of the gut 
is thrown into three simple subsidiary folds. The first of these 
corresponds to that present in most Owls, but absent in the Eagle- 
Owl; the second bears the yolk-sac vestige at its extremity, and 
the third corresponds to the part along which the lost ceca 
lay. The rectum is straight. The veins are in the typical form, 
and I have not found any short-circuiting veins. 
In the Woodpeckers (Gecinus) and Toucans (hamphastos) the 
duodenum is equally wide: the three loops of the mid-gut are 
present with the yolk-sac vestige on the median loop; but all three 
loops are much wider and shallower than in the Hornbill. The 
Fig. 24. 
Colius capensis ; intestinal tract. 
