ASTUR NISUS. 275 



tened, and is rather hollowed on the anterior and posterior surface. 

 There are no small cartilages at the division, as in most birds, in which 

 they are somewhat like the cartilages of the trachea in other animals, 

 but the trachea divides into narrow rings as in other animals; but, 

 before each division gets to the lungs, it becomes quite membranous, 

 and the membrane is very thin. 



The folds of the duodenum are not closely connected to one another, 

 and I believe it makes a turn upon itself like the duodenum of the 

 bald eagle or kite ; after it has made its third or last turn, it passes 

 backwards, on the right of the viscera, to the back, then passes towards 

 the left behind the root of the mesentery as in other animals, having 

 there but a short mesentery: it then becomes a loose intestine, the 

 mesentery becoming longer to the middle of the gut, then becoming 

 shorter towards the termination of the ileum, where it becomes a little 

 longer again, and then becoming shorter, where the gut adheres to the 

 posterior part of the stomach, just before it passes down to the rectum, 

 before which it makes a little fold upon itself. There are no caeca. 

 The rectum becomes very large [at the cloaca]. The ducts of the liver 

 and gall-bladder enter the duodenum at the last turn, very near one 

 another. The pancreatic ducts are two in number ; one is thick and 

 short, coming off from the head of the pancreas, running across the 

 mesoduodenum and entering that gut just by the gall-ducts : the small 

 and long duct comes out from the pancreas at its middle ; and, passing 

 as the former, enters just by it. 



The Sparrow-Hawk [Astur Nisus, Bechst.] . 



The stomach is a good deal of the common shape, but is white and 

 thin. The liver and ducts are as usual in birds ; that is, the hepatic 

 and cystic do not enter together, but separately : however, there is a 

 small groove continued between their terminations, made of the doubling 

 of the inner membrane : the hepato-cystic is continued into the cystic 

 by a groove on the inside of the gall-bladder. I thought that the 

 hepatic duct, when near to the gut, made a turn upwards towards the 

 entrance of the cystic. The caeca are very short. There is no cavity 

 at the end of the rectum ; only the rectum is enlarged at that part : 

 this was a hen. The length of the intestines is much the same in both 

 [sexes ?]. There were a vast number of small white bodies adhering to 

 the inside of the gut at the entrance of the (ducts ?, cseca ?) for about 

 3 inches in length of the gut. They were just like maggots attached ■ 

 to the gut by one end. 



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