THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
This extraordinary generic form was placed in a separate subfamily by 
Count Salvador! in the Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum, Vol. XXVII. 
The peculiarly formed head is equalled in interest by the half-webbed feet 
with the long hind toe. 
Stejneger, probably in the very forefront of systematic ornithologists 
of the latter end of the nineteenth century, wrote of it as follows {Stand. 
Nat. Hist. Birds, Vol. IV., p. 138, 1885) : “ Australia is the habitat of another 
not less remarkable goose-like bird, the peculiarities of which seem to us too 
great to allow it to be kept in the other families, and hence we would make it 
the type of the Anseranatidoe. It has usually been referred to the following 
group, to which it, perhaps, may also be nearest allied, but who would recog- 
nise the foot represented in the cut as that of a goose ? The long front toes, 
only united at base by a small membrane and armed with long and sharp 
claws, and especially the remarkably lengthened and strong hind toe, which is 
inserted nearly at the same level as the others, are characters so unique among 
Anseres that a separate position can hardly be denied the owner, and the feet, 
indeed, strongly suggest those of the screamers. The bill is also very peculiar, 
a warty skin covering the beak from the nail and the face to behind the eyes. 
The convolutions and position of the windpipe are most extraordinary and 
deserve to be mentioned.” 
Stejneger then quoted YarreU’s* account of this, which may be here 
again reproduced : “ The trachea is situated on the outside of the left pectoral 
muscle, under the skin . . . sufficiently raised under the wing that respiration 
would not be impeded when the bird rested with its breast on the ground ; the 
parallel tubes being firmly attached both to the muscle and the skin by cellular 
tissue. . . . The clavicle of the right side of the bird is of the usual 
character, but that on the left is both shorter and wider, having an 
aperture about the middle, the sides diverging with a projecting point on 
the inner side, to which the tube of the trachea is firmly attached, about 
two inches above the bone of divarication. The trachea lying on the left 
side of the bird, the lower portion of the tube, in its passage to the lung, 
crosses the left branch of the furcula at a right angle, but, becoming 
attached to this projection of the clavicle, receives from the point described 
its centrical direction into the body. The whole length of the windpipe 
is four feet eight inches.” 
» Trans. Linn. Soc. (Lond.), Vol. XV., p. 383, 1827. 
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