606 GREAT AMERICAN EGRET. 
its claw 14%; second toe 23%, its claw 7%; third toe 314, its claw 34; 
fourth toe 33%, its claw 7. Weight 24 lb. 
The Female is similar to the male, but somewhat smaller. 
The roof of the mouth is slightly concave, with a median and two 
lateral longitudinal ridges, the palate convex, the posterior aperture of 
the nares linear, without an anterior slit. The mouth is rather narrow, 
measuring only 8 twelfths across, but is dilatable to 14 inch, the branches 
of the lower mandible being very elastic. The aperture of the ear 
is very small, being 2 twelfths in diameter, and roundish. The ceso- 
phagus is 2 feet 2 inches long, 1 inch and 4 twelfths in diameter, ex- 
tremely thin, the longitudinal fibres 
within the transverse, the inner 
coat raised into numerous longitu- 
dinal ridges. The cesophagus con- 
tinues of uniform diameter, and 
passes as it were directly into the 
stomach, there being no enlarge- 
ment at its termination indicative 
of the proventriculus, which how- 
ever exists, but in a modified form, 
there being at the termination of 
the gullet eight longitudinal series 
of large mucous crypts, about half 
an inch long, and immediately af- 
terwards a continuous belt, 13 inch 
in breadth, of small cylindrical 
mucous crypts with minute aper- 
tures. Beyond this the stomach 
forms a hemispherical sac 14 inch 
in diameter, of amembranous struc- 
ture, having externally beneath the 
cellular coat a layer of slender mus- 
cular fibres, convex towards two roundish tendons, and internally a 
soft, thin, smooth lining, perforated by innumerable minute apertures 
of glandules. ‘The intestine is very long and extremely slender, measur- 
ing 6 feet 7 inches in length, its average diameter 2 twelfths. T he 
