CYGNUS OLOR. 317 



small and of a white-yellow colour. I could not find anything like a 

 penis. 



This bird is a good deal of the swan internally. The feathers 

 are very soft and downy, besides which there is a very soft down, like 

 that of a swan, under the feathers. 



One that I opened, which had a red head, not yellow as some are, 

 was a hen, and had large yolks ready for laying ; so that one would 

 imagine that they might breed in a garden. 



The White Fulica [Porphyrio albus, Cuv. 1 ]. 



It has no crop, but a gizzard, which is not strong, although a com- 

 plete gizzard : its horny lining is not thick, but is firm or hard : there 

 were stones in the gizzard. 



The duodenum passes down as usual, and then up, somewhat higher 

 than its beginning, making a sweep backwards to the loins and com- 

 mencing jejunum. This passes down on the right side, then up, making 

 a fold upon itself; then a second fold, as also a third, which last is 

 attached to the first fold : all these are parallel to each other. The 

 intestine then passes down more in the middle of the abdomen, further 

 than the former three folds, along with the duodenum ; and is then 

 folded, or bends up, behind all the other folds, the gizzard, tfcc, towards' 

 the root of the mesentery. In this last course it lies between the two 

 caeca, whose blind ends begin at this last turning up. At this part the 

 rectum commences and the two caeca enter. The rectum is bent down, 

 passing along the back to the anus. The whole intestines are not long. 

 It has a gall-bladder. 



[Order Natatores.] 



The Swan \Cygnus olor, Briss.]. 



The size of the thorax and abdomen of this bird is, perhaps, four 

 times larger than their contents ; there is therefore great room for air. 

 The coat of feathers of a swan is near 2 inches thick ; viz. from the 

 anterior surface to the skin 2 . This bird is well formed for lightness. 



The oesophagus before it enters the stomach is dilated, and very much 

 thickened by a glandular substance that surrounds it, and is full of 

 orifices on the inside, and is here lined with a mucus of a dark colour : 

 and, as you trace this mucus into the stomach, it becomes stronger and 

 stronger, and on the strongest sides of the stomach it is like horn, and 

 is fibrous. The fibres are not perpendicular to the stirface, but oblique ; 

 and this obliquity is not in the same direction on both sides, but in 



1 [White's Journal of a Voyage to N. S. Wales, p. 238.] 



2 [Hunt. Prep. Phys. Series, Nos. 1987, 1988.] 



