Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/31

 indeed, also in England; and I judged, consequently, that it might be superfluous, as it would not be novel, to exhibit it here and now.

Having been thus disappointed in my intention of demonstrating something new in this direction, I cast about in another for something of the same character. And in the heart of a bird, the Australian Cassowary (Casuarius australis), killed at Rockingham Bay, lat. 18 deg., on the east coast of that continent, and sent me by my former pupil, J. E. Davidson, Esq., I came upon a structure which I am well assured has never been either described or figured before. It possesses upon this ground some claim upon our attention; but it possesses stronger claims than any which mere rarity could give it, being a structure which, though it has never been seen in any other member of the class Aves, is largely developed, and, indeed, exactly reproduced in the hearts of certain mammals, and does not fail to be represented, at least rudimentarily, in our own. The structure in question is a 'moderator' band, holding precisely the same