26 
in three principal convolutions, and its connexions were as ‘usaal in birds. It com- 
mences with a thin slit-like mouth, with entire margins, two inches in width, but soon 
contracts to a diameter of ten lines ; it thence proceeds to expand very gradually to the 
width of an inch, and is thus continued to the uterine or terminal segment : this portion 
is two inches and a half in length, and one inch and a half in diameter: its inner sur- 
face was studded with slightly arborescent calcifying follicles, arranged in transverse 
rows. The lining membrane of the principal part of the oviduct was thrown into longi- 
tudinal ruge; the tube communicated with the cloaca by a short, contracted, and ob- 
lique canal and orifice, with tumid margins, Both the upper and lower mesometries 
presented the usual radiated muscular structure. 
Osseous System. 
The skeleton (Pl. VIII.) of the Apteryx exhibits, but in a less degree than the entire 
bird, the Struthious disproportion between the anterior and posterior extremities, and 
it shows that all the ordinary bones of the wing exist, though in their feeblest state 
of development. 
With the exception of the parts of the skeleton concerned in the formation of the 
nasal and auditory cavities, none of the other bones of the Apterya are perforated for 
the admission of air, nor do they exhibit the pure white colour which characterizes the 
skeleton in other birds. In their tough and compact texture they resemble the bones 
of the Lizard tribe. 
The skull (Pl. VIL. figg. 1, 2, 5.) of the Apteryz is chiefly remarkable for its smooth, 
expanded, elevated, pyriform cranial portion, the total absence of supra-orbital ridges, 
the completeness and the thickness of the inter-orbital septum, the great development 
of the ethmoid, the small size of the lacrymal bones, and the expansion of the nasal 
cavity behind these bones. The combination of the depressed with the elongated and 
slender form of the beak is of course as well marked in the skull as in the entire head 
already described. 
The occipital region of the cranium has a pretty regular semicircular contour, and dif- 
fers from that of other Struthious birds in the greater relative extent of its base, and in 
the comparatively slight lateral sinuosities due to the temporal depressions. The single 
hemispherical tubercle in the bast-occipital, for the articulation with the atlas, has not 
the vertical notch at the upper part observable in the Ostrich and Emeu, but is entire 
as in the Khea ; and the plane of the occipital foramen has the same aspect as in that 
bird, in which it is more nearly horizontal than in the Ostrich. The supra-occipital plate 
forms a somewhat angular projection, corresponding with the small cerebellum within, 
aid is bounded on each side by a vertical vascular groove, termin 
and below : external to these grooves the ex- 
in the form of obtuse processes, compressed 
ated by a foramen above 
occipitals extend outwards and downwards, 
in the antero-posterior direction, slightly 

