170 ZOOLOGY. 
arated three inches from its mate, at the base. It is thus not quite 
so long as the beam of the specimen first described. It differs more- 
over in possessing a peculiar curvature just beyond the point where 
the large anterior antler should have been given off (which exceeds 
the beamin O. Virginianus). The true beam is shortly sigmoidally 
twisted, and then pursues a more anterior direction than in the 
normal horn, or my spike-horn. The anterior antler is represented 
by a rudiment.—E. D. Corr. 
Dors THe PELICAN FEED ITS YOUNG WITH ITS OWN BLoop?— 
The supposed fable of the pelican feeding its young with its own 
blood may prove, after all, to have some foundation in fact, as a 
somewhat analogous circumstance has recently been observed in 
connection with the flamingo. A pair of these birds in the Zoo- 
logical. Gardens of London showed symptons of breeding, but 
laid no eggs. Some Cariamas, kept in the same aviary, have 
the habit of opening their mouths, bending back their heads and 
uttering a plaintive ery like young birds. In response to this, the 
flamingoes during the period referred to would frequently stand 
over the Cariamas and, with a gulp, raise up a reddish glutinous 
fluid from their throats and disgorge it over them, pouring it into 
their throats and even over their backs. This on examination 
proved to consist of blood corpuscles, in a glairy fluid, and mixed 
with crystals, supposed to be principally of salt. This, by Mr. 
Bartlett, the superintendent of the Gardens, is believed to be an 
addition to the usual food furnished by the parent flamingoes to 
their young, and perhaps analogous to the milky fluid supplied by 
pigeons under the same circumstances, end discharged from the 
thickened membrane of the crop. 
A somewhat analogous, and still more curious, fact is furnished 
by the hornbill, an African bird with a huge bill, of which many 
species can be seen in our public museums. As is now known, 
the male bird is in the habit of walling up the female while seated 
on her nest in a hole of a tree, so as to imprison her completely, 
leaving only the head and neck exposed. He then fills his crop 
_ with fruit which becomes encased in a gelatinous envelope, se- 
: creted from its walls and the whole is then brought up in a mass 
and fed to the captive.— S. F. 
Nesr, Eces anp Breepine Hairs or THE VERMILION FLY- 
a, (Pyrocephalus rubineus var. Mexicanus).— This bird is a 
aonek Pandeni of oe southern asst of Arizona, 
