AMERIC AN - AWHINGA. 
167 
and form an abrupt margin beneath ; on the inner surface there are foui 
irregular series of large apertures of gastric glandules or crypts. The pro 
ventriculus itself, c,is composed of large crypts of irregular form, with very 
wide apertures, and covered externally with muscular fibres. The stomach, 
d d, is roundish, about an inch and three quarters in diameter, with two 
roundish tendinous spaces, e, and fasciculi, of muscular fibres ; its inner coat 
thin, soft, and smooth. It opens by an aperture a quarter of an inch in 
diameter into a small sac,/, precisely similar to that of the Pelican, which 
has a muscular coat, with a soft, even, internal membrane, like that of the 
stomach. The pylorus has a diameter of 2 twelfths, is closed by a semilunar 
valve or flap, and is surrounded by a disk of radiating rugas three-fourths of 
an inch in diameter. The intestine, g h, is 3 feet 4 inches long, its averago 
diameter 2i twelfths, but only 1 twelfth at its junction with the rectum, 
which is 34 inches long, 3 twelfths in diameter. The cloaca globular, 14 
inches in diameter. There are no cceca, properly so called, but a small 
rounded termination of the rectum , 2 twelfths in length, as in the Herons. 
The subcutaneous cellular tissue is largely developed, and the longitudinal 
cells on the neck are extremely large, as in Gannets and Herons. The 
olfactory nerve is of moderate size, and the nasal cavity is a simple com- 
pressed sac 4 twelfths in its greatest diameter. The external aperture at 
the ear is circular, and not more than half a twelfth in diameter. 
The trachea is 134 inches long, much flattened, narrow at the upper 
extremity, where it is twelfths in breadth, enlarging gradually to 44 
twelfths, and toward the lower larynx contracting to 2\ twelfths. The 
rings are very slender, unossified, and feeble ; their number 230 ; the bron- 
chial half-rings 25. The contractor muscles moderate ; sterno-tracheales ; 
and a pair of inferior muscles going to the last ring. 
In a young bird scarcely two days old, and measuring only 3£ inches in 
length, the two most remarkable circumstances observed refer to the nostrils 
and stomach. The posterior or palatal aperture of the nares is of the same 
form, and proportional size, as in the adult ; the nasal cavity is similar ; but 
there is an external nasal aperture, or nostril, on each side, so small as merely 
to admit the mystachial bristle of a Common Squirrel. The stomach is of 
enormous size, occupying three-fourths of the cavity of the thorax and 
abdomen, being 10 twelfths of an inch long, and of an oval shape. The 
proventriculus is separated from the stomach and formed into a roundish 
lobe, as in the old bird ; and beside it is the lobe or pouch appended to the 
stomach, and from which the duodenum comes off. Even at this very early 
age, the stomach was turgid with a pultaceous mass apparently composed 
of macerated fish, without any bones or other hard substances intermixed. 
