Ornithological biography, Vol. 4 (of 5) : $b An account of the habits of the birds of the United States of AmericaAudubon, John James
Science
Ornithological biography, Vol. 4 (of 5) : $b An account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America
Audubon, John James
Birds -- North America
The duodenum _g_, _h_, _i_, passes backwards and upwards to the
length of 6-1/2 inches, returns upon itself enclosing the pancreas,
receives the biliary ducts at the distance of 14 inches from the
pylorus. The gall-bladder is oblong, 2 inches long, and 10 twelfths
broad. The intestine then forms numerous convolutions, _j_, _k_, _l_,
occupying the whole abdomen, and lying in part over the stomach and
proventriculus. Its entire length is 10 feet 10 inches. Its diameter
varies little, it being at the upper part 5 twelfths of an inch,
towards the rectum 3-1/2 twelfths. The rectum is 5-1/2 inches long,
including the cloaca, _m_, which is globular, and about 2-1/2 inches
in diameter. The cœca are 1 inch and 1 twelfth in length, 4 twelfths
in diameter, cylindrical, rounded at the end. The muscular coat of the
intestine is very strong, the inner villous.
One of the testes is 1 inch long, the other 1-1/2; their form oblong.
In the proventriculus and stomach is a vast accumulation of small
lumbrici, about 1-1/4 inch in length, and amounting to about 1000.
The trachea is 1 foot 10 inches long, a little flattened, 1/2 inch in
diameter throughout, but a little narrower about the middle; the rings
160, not ossified, excepting the lower. The contractor muscles are very
small; as are the sterno-tracheal; and the inferior larynx is destitute
of muscles. The bronchi are large, 5 twelfths in diameter, of 25 half
rings.
The upper mandible is hollow in its whole extent; but the lateral
spaces intervening between the edges of the median bone or ridge and
the margins, are filled with a beautiful net-work of bony spiculæ. The
two superior maxillary branches of the fifth pair of nerves, which
are very large, being about 1 twelfth of an inch in diameter at the
base, run close together along the median line, sending off branches at
intervals, and extending to the end of the mandible. The lower mandible
is also hollow, and similarly reticulated. The inferior maxillary
branch, having entered on the inner side at the base, runs in like
manner along its whole length, and is of the same thickness; by an
aperture on the outer side near the base, it sends off a branch almost
as thick, which runs within the membrane of the gular sac, parallel
to the mandible, and about half an inch distant from it, sending off
branches at intervals. The sac is plentifully supplied with blood
vessels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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