The term fuscus is but poorly applicable to this bird in adult plumage: the long and pointed feathers, being black with a central stripe of pure white, give a hue rather hoary or silvery than fuscous; and the pale yellow head, and deep chestnut neck, margined with a white edging, adds a considerable degree of beauty to the whole.
I dissected a female in May; an operation which though performed in the open air, was almost sufficient to take away the breath. I found the stomach a long capacious sac without constriction, with thick muscular walls; there was a round cavity just beyond the pyloric bend; the intestinal canal was nearly uniform in size, slender, but long, with many convolutions; it measured 99 inches; near the middle was a curious conformation, which I have observed in the intestine of the Ardeadæ; as though the tube had been abruptly terminated and closed, and another tube let in at the side of the former a little way from the end, which end thus projected like a teat. Two cæca, about 1½ inch long when distended. The appearance of the viscera corresponded in most particulars to that described by Prof. Owen (Pr. Zool. Soc. 1835) in P. rufescens. The right lobe of the liver was three or four times greater in volume than the left; the former had its edges rounded; the latter was sub-globose. The gall-bladder small; the gall deep brown-yellow. The spleen was large, oval, about 1¾ by 1¼, soft, and greenish-black. Kidneys about equal, 2 inches by 1 inch. The fat about the viscera, which was in series of small lumps, was of a deep orange, or almost salmon-red. I may add that our species seems much more arboreal than that described by Prof. Owen. On bending the heel-joint, so as to bring the tarsus up towards the tibia, the toes were strongly incurved; and on my placing a stick beneath the toes, and then forcibly bending the heel, the stick was grasped with so much power that it could with difficulty be dragged away. I perceived from the form which the foot assumed under such circumstances, that the hind toe is opposed to the others in grasping or perching, notwithstanding their continuity of membrane; the web which connects the hind-toe being wide enough to admit an object like the branch of a tree, when the toes are opposed.
The tongue is singularly minute; the rami of the hyoïd bone, passing on each side of the larynx, are simply enveloped in the membranes of the pouch, and at their convergence, there is a minute projecting point of cartilage about ¹⁄₆ inch long, which is the only apology for a tongue.
I was astonished to observe that the whole inner surface of the skin on the trunk, was cellular, especially on the breast; composing an immense congeries of membranous cells, inflated with air. The pouch held seventeen pints of water, which when full dripped out at a wound in the fore-arm.
DUSKY BOOBY.[130]
Sula fusca.
| Pelecanus sula, | Linn.—Aud. pl. 207. |
| Sula fusca, | Briss. |
[130] Length 29 inches, expanse 58, flexure 14¾, tail 7¾, rictus 4⁸⁄₁₀, tarsus 1½, middle toe 3.
The trees described in the preceding article as constituting the lodging place of the Pelicans, are frequented also, though less regularly, by a considerable number of these Boobies. They usually huddle together, in little groups, sitting closely side by side, so that four and five may frequently be brought down at a shot.