The above account of the digestive organs of this bird will be seen to be very different from that given by Sir Everard Home, who has, in all probability, mistaken the species. “There is still,” says he, “one more variety in the structure of the digestive organs of birds, that live principally upon animal food, which has come under my observation; and with an account of which I shall conclude the present lecture. This bird is the Alea Alle of Linnæus, the Little Auk. The termination of the œsophagus is only known by the ending of the cuticular lining, and the beginning of the gastric glands; for the cardiac cavity is one continued tube, extending considerably lower down in the cavity of the abdomen, and gradually enlarging at the lower part; it then turns up to the right side, about half-way to the origin of the cavity, and is there connected to a small gizzard, the digastric muscle of which is strong, and a small portion of the internal surface on each side has a hard cuticular covering. The gastric glands at the upper part are placed in four distinct longitudinal rows, becoming more and more numerous towards the lower part of the cavity, and extend to the bottom, where it turns up. The extent of the cavity in which the gastric glands are placed, exceeds any thing met with in the other birds that live upon fish; and the turn which the cavity takes almost directly upwards, and the gizzard being at the highest part instead of the lowest, are peculiarities, as far as I am acquainted, not met with in any other birds of prey. This mechanism, which will be better understood by examining the engraving, makes the obstacles to the food in its passage to the intestines unusually great; and enables the bird to digest both fishes and sea-worms with crustaceous shells. It appears to be given for the purpose of economizing the food in two different ways,—one retaining it longer in the cardiac cavity, the other supplying that cavity with a greater quantity of gastric liquor than in other birds. This opinion is further confirmed by the habits of life of this particular species of bird, which spends a portion of the year in the frozen regions of Nova Zembla, where the supplies of nourishment must be both scanty and precarious.”