468 Information respecting Zoological fy Botanical Travellers. knows, always originate from the ventral face of the digest-ive tube, whatever their position may be in the splanchnic cavity, and it is always on the ventral side of the pharynx that the opening of the glottis is found ; it is the same with the Lepidosiren ; and if the resemblance between the lungs of all these animals and the air-bladder of the Lepisostei and of the Amice was as great as Mr. Owen seems to think it is, we ought to find this same character of organic relationship be-tween the oesophagus and the bladder of these fish. Now it is quite the contrary ^ for the kind of pseudo-glottis which establishes the communication between this cellular pouch and the digestive tube originates from the dorsal face of the oesophagus. There exists then a fundamental anatomical dif-ference between these parts, whatever else may be their phy-siological functions, and this difference furnishes a fresh ar-gument in favour of the opinion of those who consider the Lepidosiren as a Reptile. I shall also add, that in the Lepidosiren paradoxa the abdo-minal viscera which, for the most part, were wanting in the individuals dissected by M. Bischoff, greatly resembled those of the Lepidosiren annectens, whose structure Mr. Owen has made known. M. Bibron and myself have sought there in vain for the traces of a pancreas and of a spleen, and the spiral valve of the intestine appeared to us to be still more developed than in the Lepidosiren annectens. LV. — Information respecting Zoological and Botanical Travellers. The expedition under Mr. Schomburgk, appointed at the expense of Government, to survey the boundaries of British Guiana, has sailed for Demerara. Messrs. Glascott, R.N., and Mr. Walton accompany it, the first as assistant-surveyor, the latter as artist ; but unless we are misinformed, there is no naturalist or collector on the part of this country, — Mr. Richard Schomburgk, brother to the director of the expedition, going out as a naturalist at the expense of the Prus-sian government and by permission ; and thus we fear that the whole fruits, so far as natural history is concerned, of an expedition carried into a rich and partly unknown country at British expense and under British protection, will be carried off to a foreign king-dom, for the want of a person to attend exclusively to that branch, and who could have accompanied the party at comparatively small expense, and under circumstances of advantage of which others have known how to avail themselves. There is time still to remedy this. The " Niger expedition" will also sail in a short time. One of the commanders is already known to be an excellent draughtsman, and
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