FLORIDA CORMORANT. 633 



ventricular glands are disposed in two roundish masses, separated by 

 an interval of half an inch ; one of these masses is 2^ inches in breadth, 

 and 1^ inch in length. The intestine is 5 feet 2 inches long, 3 twelfths 

 in breadth ; the coeca 4 twelfths long, 3 twelfths wide ; the cloaca 1 

 inch in diameter ; the gland 9 twelfths long, 8 twelfths in breadth, hol- 

 low, with its inner surface corrugated ; it opens by a single aperture 

 into the upper posterior part of the cloaca. 



The nostril is still open, linear, 2 twelfths long, ^ twelfth in 

 breadth. The posterior aperture of the nose is 6 twelfths in length, 

 and there is a free communication between the anterior and the poste- 

 rior openings, passing from the former obliquely backwards; and a sinus, 

 4 twelfths in length, proceeds as far as the edge of the orbit. The an- 

 terior part of the cerebrum gives off the olfactory nerve, which runs 

 along the septum of the orbit, hke a thread, a quarter of a twelfth in 

 breadth, and is distributed upon the membrane of the nasal cavity, some 

 of its branches extending along the interior of the mandible. 



We have seen that in the adult Cormorant, of which the external 

 nares are completely closed, the nasal cavity of moderate size, and com- 

 municating with that of the mouth, the nasal membrane is supplied 

 with filaments of an olfactory nerve, not very much inferior in size to 

 that of the Turkey Buzzard and Raven, which are supposed by some to 

 smell their prey at enormous distances : yet the Cormorants, it appears, 

 cannot possibly smell, as the air does not pass through their nasal cavi- 

 ties. 



