ANATOMY OF THE SHOE-BILL. 659 



aperture from tlie small intestine to the large intestine (text- 

 fig. 123, B) is relatively extremely small and is considerably more 

 posterior (nearer the cloaca) than the region where the one portion 

 of the gut joins the other, the actual passage running in the 

 conjoined walls for a certain distance. There is not more than 

 the very slightest fold or bulge on the wall of the large intestine, 

 which may be imagined rather than definitely stated to be a relic 

 of an originally paired condition of the cpeca. 



The presence of a single caecum in Balceniceps has already been 

 noted by Forbes (10) from a prepared specimen of that region 

 of the gut mounted in the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons, and this specimen corresponds in evei-y particular 

 Avith the example which I have dissected and figure in this 

 communication to the Society. Beddard, however, (3) wrote as 

 follows : — " In the intestines I could not discover any trace of 

 <;8eca at all ; I believe that the single caecum which characterizes 

 the Ardeidfe (there are two in the Ciconiee) may be extremely 

 minute, and might therefore easily escape recognition in the 

 spirit-preserved alimentary tract." I have probably examined 

 carefully at least as many cseca of birds as any other anatomist, 

 fl,nd Dr. Beddard's supposition seemed to me extremely improbable 

 on general grounds. When I found that the specimen in the 

 College of Surgeons' Museum was extremely like my own dis- 

 section, it seemed still more improbable that a structure so 

 definite and peculiar could be present or absent in different 

 individuals. Dr. Beddard examined viscera which had been 

 preserved in spirit and which had been previously handled by 

 some other investigator. On consulting with him, he was able 

 to add to the information given in his memoir, that the late 

 Professor Stewart was i-ather unwilling that so rare a specimen 

 should be cut about too much, and he agreed Avith me that it was 

 quite possible that the portion of the gut to which the cascum is 

 attached had been removed before he examined it. Thanks to 

 the kindness of Mr. R. H. Burne I have now had the opportunity 

 of comparing the gut from the example I dissected with the 

 actual material examined by Dr. Beddard in 1888. Dr. Beddard's 

 material was in three pieces and the greater part of the mesentery 

 had been cut away, but enough of the latter had been left to 

 enable me to identify with complete certainty the general dis- 

 position of the gut, to recognize the duodenal loop followed by 

 the subsidiary loops into which the hepatic ducts open, the large 

 loop with its proximal minor loop, exactly as in the diagram from 

 my specimen, the short loop with the remnant of Meckel's 

 diverticulum (which Dr. Beddard, apparently, had not noticed) in 

 precisely the same relative position on the loop and pointing 

 forwards, the short twists preceding the supra-duodenal loop, and 

 the latter loop. It was evident, moreover, that the remainder of 

 the intestinal tract had been cut away, and that Dr. Beddard had 

 failed to find the caecum because he had not quite the whole of 

 the small intestine before him, and no part of the large intestine. 



Piioc. ZooL. Soc— 1913, No. XLIV. 44 



