8556 



Birds. 



lining of grass, which appears to have heen plucked while growing. The very small 

 bits of moss and lichen do not seem to have been intentionally added, but to have 

 adhered to the other materials. The down with which the nestling has been covered, 

 and of which traces may be observed on a few of the back-feathers, is of a dark 

 brownish gray, as is usual among the Corvidce. The first plumage much resembles 

 that of the adult, being, however, duller in colour, and with the white tear-like spots 

 less conspicuous ; but the quill-feathers of the wings and tail are not so entirely 

 destitute of metallic reflections as some authors lead one to imagine. Whether the 

 nutcracker builds the whole structure for itself, or only furnishes the forsaken nest of 

 some other animal, I do not know. This and other particulars we shall probably soon 

 learn from Pastor Theobald himself; and I need scarcely say I look forward with the 

 greatest interest to the clearing up of our doubts as to what its eggs are really like. — 

 Alfred Newton, in ' Proceedings of Zoological Society] June 24, 1862. [Communi- 

 cated by the Author']. 



On the supposed Gular Pouch of the Male Bustard. — Now, thinking it quite pos- 

 sible, from my knowledge of the various opinions I have here arrayed, that the belief 

 in this mysterious organ might have been prematurely abandoned, I was very anxious 

 to investigate the matter for myself. I thought it highly desirable that an examina- 

 tion of a really old cock bird should be made, and that at the season of the year when 

 a structure of the sort might be supposed to be most fully developed. As our native 

 race of bustards has been extinct since 183S, or thereabouts, it was not easy to obtain 

 such a specimen as I wished. * At length, through the kindness of a correspondent, 

 Mr. Henry Smurthwaite, on the 12th of March, 1S58, I received a magnificent old 

 male Otis tarda, which had been killed near Leipzig a few days before, and had been 

 forwarded to me with all possible speed. It weighed 23^ lbs., and arrived in beauti- 

 ful condition. With the greatest anxiety I immediately looked under the tongue — no 

 hole was visible; I took a probe — no opening appeared. Mistrusting my own powers 

 of manipulation and dissection, I hurried off with it to London, and secured the 

 assistance of Mr. A. D. Bartlett, than whom there can scarcely be a more practical or 

 more careful observer. We again searched for the opening under the tongue, and we 

 came, I confess reluctantly, to the undoubted conclusion that in this specimen it did 

 not exist. Mr. Bartlett then began to skin the neck— not in front, lest we should cut 

 into the pouch, but from the axilla along the side to the corner of the mouth, laying 

 bare the skin on either side: nothing like a pouch could be seen. Subsequently we 

 separated the windpipe and gullet, and cut them oft' from the head. Then with a 

 blowpipe it was easy to inflate the body by the oesophagus: by the trachea we failed 

 to do so, as the air escaped through a broken wing-bone ; but by blowing down the 

 former we could swell out the whole body and neck wonderfully. After that we cleared 

 the skin away from the entire neck, and presently from the body. The neck was 



* Most, if not all, of the stray examples which have of late years occurred in Eng- 

 land appear to have been birds of the preceding summer, and, with two exceptions 

 only, have been females. The very fine young male obtained near Hungerford, 

 January 3, 1856, was preserved at Mr. Leadbeater's establishment (' Proceedings of 

 Zoological Society,' 1856, p. 1). Mr. J. Wolley, who was then in London, at my 

 request, questioned the man who skinned it, but no special search for a gular pouch 

 was made. The breast-bone of this bird, with some of the membranes still adhering 

 to the anterior part, is now lying before me. 



