204 
GENERAL ORNITHOLOGY. 
the floor of the mouth, at the root of the tongue, between the forks of the hyoid bone, resting 
upon the uro-hyal. Besides its attachments of mucous and other membrane, it is connected 
with the hyoid bone by a pair of thyro-hyoid muscles (8, and usually with the rest of the 
trachea by prolongations of the steruo- and cleido-tracheales. It is usually a small, simple, 
conical mouth-piece" of the pipe a), without the dilatation which renders the corresponding 
structure — the " Adam's apple," — so conspicuous in the human throat. Below, it communi- 
cates directly with the pipe : above, it opens into the mouth by the glottidean fissure, or rima 
glottidis (3, c), a median lengthwise chink, which opens and shuts as its sides diverge or close 
together, and which is further defended in front by a folding of the mucous membrane of the 
mouth, constituting a rudiment of that curious trap-door an-angement which, 'when fully 
developed, is called the epiglottis (3, d, e). Exclusive of two broken upper rings of the tra- 
chea (6, g), the cartilages (or oftener bones, — for they generally ossify) of the larynx are five. 
One is a large single median and inferior piece, the thyroid, or shield-piece (•*, 7, a), 
forming the most substantial part of the structure. It is somewhat triangular or oblong, run- 
ning to an obtuse end in front ; and with sides and posterior angles which curl upward behind. 
To its lateral posterior comer is attached on each side the small horns" or cornicula laryngis 
(5, 6^ 7^ There is a small median upper posterior piece, supposed to represent all there is 
of the cricoid (5, 7^ c), which in man makes a ring around the larynx below the thyroid. To 
the cricoid, as to a base, are attached a pair of straight slender arytenoids (6, 7^ projecting 
forward along the upper surface of the larynx : these form the rima glottidis, — the fissure of the 
glottis being between them. The arytenoids are attached in front by slender ligaments to the 
end of the thyroid (5, the little slips between and e), and they are supplemented by carti- 
laginous edges (6, /, /) ; but there are no true vocal chords. Besides the extrinsic thyro-hyoid 
muscles, which pass from the larynx to the tongue-bone, the laryngeal parts are operated by 
intrinsic muscles, the sum of the motion given by which is the opening and shutting of the 
glottis by drawing apart or pulling together the arytenoids. Four pairs of such muscles are 
described for some birds. As named and figured by Macgillivray for the rook, there are : the 
thyro-arytenoids, which are the openers of the glottis (9, 2,2) ; the oblique arytenoids (lO, 3,3) . 
the thyro-cricoids {^^, '*»*) ; and the posterior thyro-cricoids (n and 5,5). 
The Syrinx (Gr. crvpiy^, surigx, a pipe) or Lower Larynx is the voice-organ of birds ; in 
most respects a more complicated structure than the larynx proper, and one so difierently 
constructed in diflferent birds that it afibrds characters of great significance in classification. 
The highest group of Passeres, for example, is signalized by the elaboration of this musical 
organ, the marvellously adroit fingering of the keys of which by the little muscular performers 
sends through the tracheal sounding-pipe the tuneful messages of bird's highest estate. A few 
degraded or disgraced birds, as the ostrich and the American vultures, have no bucolic organ at 
all, the trachea forking as simply as possible. Others, as the common fowl, have a fair syrinx, 
but no muscles whatever to modulate their pastoral lays. Others have one, two, or three pairs 
of intrinsic muscles; to which may or may not be added a stemo-tracheal with syringeal attach- 
ment. It is not so much the bulk or mere fleshiness of the syrinx that indicates musical abil- 
ity ; but the distinctness of the several muscles, and the mode of their insertion, which result in 
endless combinations of rotating and rocking movements of the parts, whereby an infinite modu- 
lation of the musical tones becomes possible. In Oscines, there are normally five or six pairs 
of muscles, without counting the extrinsic stemo-tracheales ; and the gist of the arrangement, 
in these melodious Passeres, is the attachment of the muscles to the ends of the upper bronchial 
half- rings, as far as the third one. As Professor Owen remarks with appreciative feeling, ''the 
manifold ways in which the several parts of the complex vocal organ in Cantores may be 
afi"ected, each of the principal bony half-rings, as one or the other end may be pulled, being 
made to perform a slight rotatory motion, are incalculable ; but their effects are delightfully 
