196 ROSEATE SPOONBILL.
The heart, g, is remarkably largej being 1 inch and 10 twelfths long,
1 inch and a half in breadth. The lobes of the liver; h, i, are very large,
and about equal, their greatest length being 3 inches ; the gall-bladder
globular, 8 twelfths in diameter. One of the testes is 11 twelfths long,
9 twelfths broad; the other 10 twelfths by 7 twelfths; their great size
being accounted for by-the individual's having been killed in the breeding
season.
In a female of much smaller size the oesophagus is 15 inches long;
the stomach 2 inches in length, 1 inch and 9 twelfths broad; the intestine
7 feet 7 inche's. The contents of the stomachy fishes, shrimps,
and fragments of shells.
One of the most remarkable deviations from ordinary forms in this
bird is the division of the trachea previous to its entering the thorax. It may
be described as very short, a lit®« flattened, and quite membranous,
the rings being- cartilaginous and very thin. Its diameter at the top
is 5 twelfths, and it is scarcely less at the lower part, where, half-way
down the neck, is formed an inferior larynx, le, which is Scarcely enlarged.
The two bronchi 1m, I m, are in ctaisequence excessively elongated.
They are compressed, 0 twelfths in diameter at' tfie commencement,
gradually contracting to 3 twelfths, and enlarging ia little towards the
- end; and are singular in this respect that the rings of the upper fourth
are incomplete, the tube being completed by membrane in t feusual manner,
whereas in the rest of their extent, the rings are elliptical, entire,
stronger, and those at the lower part united or anehylosed on the inner
side. The rings of the trachea are 105, of the two bronchi 73 and 71.
The contractor muscles are feeble- and terminate at the lower larynx;
from which no muscle extends along the bronchi, which, until they
enter the thorax, run parallel: and in contact, being enclosed within a
common sheath of dense cellular tissue. The bronchi have the last ring,
much enlarged, and open into a funnel, which passing backwards and
- terminating in one of the abdominal cells, is perforated above with
eight or ten transverse elliptical slits, which open into similar tubes or
tunnels, opening -in the s'ame manner into smaller tubes, and thus
ramifying through the lungs.
In the male bird, of which the upper part of the trachea has been
destroyed, there are in one bronchus 80, in the other 71 rings, 20 of
the upper rings being incomplete.
The vertebrae of the neck have no resemblance to those of Herons,
ROSEATE SPOONBILL. 197
nor does that part curve in the same abrupt manner ; and thé sternum
i s in all essential respects similar to that of the Curlews, Tringas, and
other "birds of that family,-it having a.vory prominent trest, with two
deep posterior n o U t a on each side. In fact, the sternum of Tr inga
€ inclus is almost an exact miniature of i t
(b
The compact form of the body, its great muscularity, the form of
the legs, the length and slenderness of the neck, the f o r m a n d bareness
of the head, and the elongation of i£he bill, especially when it is laterally
viewed, all indicate , an affinity to the Tantali and Numenii. But
the Spoonbills are also allied in various degrees to the Herons and Pelicaninae;
so that they clearly present one of those remarkable centres
of radiation, demonstrative of the. absurdity of quinary and circular arrangements,
founded merely on a comparison of skins.