34 



THE OOLOGIST. 



not help glancing at the head, (see cut 

 I). Notice the eye, position, size, &c; 

 compare with other birds; notice upper 

 and lower eyelid; find the third lid; no- 

 tice live bird wink; the beak; shape, 

 size, color; nostrils; open mouth and 

 probe to find their opening into mouth: 

 nostrils open beneath a soft tumid cere; 

 compare with bills of other birds; find 

 the auditory aperature; compare with 

 other birds; has size and shape any- 

 thing to do with acuteness of hearing? 

 make a careful drawing of head. *The 

 specimen should • be killed with chloro- 

 form or ether. If put in a large glass 

 jar with chloroformed sponge, note 

 which way it falls when being over- 

 come by the drug. Laying specimen 

 on board, draw outline of bird; dip in 

 hot water and pluck; draw another out- 

 line of body; compare with first; notice 

 feather tras, &c, &c.;. thrust blow- 

 pipe (one without enlargement of end) 

 in the mouth: loop a string around the 

 beak behind sere, tightening it enough to 

 prevent air escaping while the crop and 

 air sacs are inflated; withdraw the 

 blow-pipe, at the same instant tighten- 

 ing the loop to prevent escape of air; tie 

 securely; make an incision through skin 

 along keel of sternum back to vent and 

 forward to throat. Skiu the whole ven- 

 tral surface of the body; (being careful 

 not to cut the crop) the oesophagus, trace 

 it from mouth to crop; lobes of crop; 

 fine lines, muscle fibres in walls of crop; 

 jugular veins on each side of neck; 

 trachea; rings of same; are they com- 

 plete rings? do not forget drawing pa- 

 per; large muscle of breast; muscles of 

 abdomen; make an abdominal incision 

 from sternum to vent; be careful not to 

 cut the abdominal air-sacs; part the ab- 

 dominal walls and note the air-sacs; 

 find another pair of air-sacs -anterior to 

 these; remove the ligature around man- 

 dibles; break the humerus bone of one 

 wing, after clearing it of flesh; insert 



*The bird should have fasted a day or two be- 

 fore being killed. 



the broken body-end of bone in water; 

 inflate air-sacs as before; what does this 

 show? What are you doing with your 

 note-book? the membrane which cover- 

 ed the contents of abdomen is the great 

 omentum; make incisions on each side 

 of keel of breast-bone; dissect away 

 breast muscles, noting their structure, 

 &c, with strong scissors make an in- 

 cision through the sternum parallel to 

 the keel; inflate the air-sacs at first; 

 part the pieces of breast-bone; can any 

 more air-sacs be seen? make another 

 incision of sternum similar to first on 

 other side; remove keel of sternum; 

 note the position &c. of the following 

 organs, viz: — Liver, gizzard, heart, 

 lungs, intestines, &c, trace the diges- 

 tive canal from crop to gizzard; back- 

 ward from gizzard, the part of intestine 

 nearest it is the duodenum — its loop 

 shape; ^pancreas in loop; trace intes- 

 tine backward; the mesentery, the thin 

 membrane holding intestine; trace the 

 intestine to the two bulb-like protub- 

 erences, the caeca; (cut EX-n.) back of 

 these the digestive canal is know as the 

 large intestine; the widening of the 

 large intestine near the vent is the clo- 

 aca. The liver; lobes; the bile ducts 

 leaving the right lobe; where do they 

 empty? notice ducts leading from pan- 

 creas. The part of the canal for a 

 short distance in front of gizzard in the 

 proveniriculus . 

 [To be continued in the March number .] 



Bro' Partridge- 



Hudson is a town of about 800 inhab- 

 itants. In September 1889, I saw a 

 Ruffed Grouse in the garden upon an 

 apple tree over run by a Concord grape 

 vine. Every clay or two for a month I 

 saw him there. He staid in town all 

 winter, in April he disappeared. In 

 fall of 1890. he was on hand again, and 

 during that winter spent three weeks 

 of the severest weather in a large Nor- 

 way spruce within twenty-five feet of my 



