Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/166

160 160 DR. JOHN SCOULER. & loose. Tongue fleshy ; its point covered by a semilunar membrane fixed to the lower jaw. This animal is eden- tulous. Xiphias velifer [Xiphias gladiust]. Body somewhat roundish ; becoming very slender before it terminates in the tail, this part is curvated [?]. Gills 5 on each side ; internal ones bilamellar, exterior one single. No swimming bladder. The intestines are very simple, they consist of a stomach which forms almost a cul-de-sac ; & where it narrows & immerges into the small intestine is enveloped by the lobes of the liver. The stomach contained a num- ber of small flying fish & a sepia ; its internal surface has many longitudinal plicse. A short & straight gut goes from the stomach to the anus. Liver about fills the whole abdomen ; at its anterior extremity it is thick & lobulated, towards its caudal it becomes thin. Spleen small & black. 27th. A great many birds of the sub-genus Sula have been flying about the. vessel and several of them have alighted on the rigging. From the descriptions of Cuvier & Temminck this bird in all probability is the Pelecanus bassanus of Linneus & the Sula abba [?] of modern orni- thologists. 28th. Saw abundance of porpoises of two different species, probably Delphinus Gladiator & D. phosena [?] of Lacep^de. February 17thi During the very bad weather we have experienced of late, many albatross have been seen & to-day we succeeded in obtaining four of them. In their plumage & internal organisation they differed in no re- spect from those I dissected of[f] Terra del Fuego. It may be proper to notice some mistakes into which Cuvier has fallen, in his Regne Animal with respect to this bird. He says : Us habitent tous les mers Australes, vivent de frofde poissou de mollusques : Regne Animal, p. 1, +517.