WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 
of explaining the existence of a pouch in the fore part of 
the neck, etc., in some of the old male birds of this species, 
viz. that some of the membranes in this part of the bird 
have become ruptured by the excessive enlargement that 
takes place during the violent paroxysms to which the 
males are subject on the approach of the breeding season. 
I have seen them with throats enlarged to an extraordinary 
extent, the pinions of the wings lowered to the ground, 
while the points of the primaries are crossed over their 
backs, and in this distorted state they rush on and attack 
each other, giving one reason to imagine that these delicate 
membranes at such a moment may give way and produce 
the abnormal condition so often alluded to as being found 
in old males. As a further proof of the probability of this 
being the true exj)lanation, I call attention to the great 
difference in size and form of the so-called pouches, as 
given by different observers. 
The fluid contained in the pouch would also be thus 
fully accounted for, if my hypothesis be correct. 
Owen’s apteryx. 
The A]3teryx Oivcnii . — As its name carries with it one 
of which every Englishman ought to be proud, we feel 
called upon to give rather a full account in the first notice 
of this singular family of wingless birds. Captain Barclay, 
of the ship ProvidcncG, brought from New Zealand, about 
the year 1812, the skin of a bird which Dr. Shaw, the 
naturalist and ornithologist of that day, figured and de- 
scribed as the A^tcrijx cmstrcdis in the Naturalist' s Mis- 
cellany. After the death of Dr. Shaw the specimen passed 
into the possession of the late Earl of Derby, whose fine 
collection now belongs to the town of Liverpool, having 
280 
