Syrinx

“ The syrinx consisted of a varying number of reeds, having their open ends or embouchures in a horizontal line and their stopped ends, formed by the knots in the reed, gradually decreasing in length from left to right. Each pipe gave out one note, but by overblowing, i.e. increased pressure of breath and tension of lips, harmonies could be obtained. ”

“ Syrinx trachealis. The lower portion of the trachea consists of thin membranes, about half a dozen of the rings being very thin or deficient. Inner and outer membranes may exist on the bronchi. The Tracheophonae among the Passeriformes, the possessors of this specialized although low type of syrinx, form a tolerably well-marked group, entirely neotropical. But indications of such a syrinx occur also in Pittidae, pigeons and gallinaceous birds (Gallidae) , the last cases being clearly analogous.
Whilst the type of syrinx affords no help in classification, it is very different with its muscles. ”

“ He was devoted to music, and was usually seen playing on the syrinx,—or shepherd's pipes,—which he himself invented and named from a nymph whom he unsuccessfully wooed. The maiden Syrinx was a follower of Diana; and one day, as she was returning from the chase, she met Pan, who immediately fell in love with her beauty, and begged her to be his wife. The nymph had always scorned to listen to any lover, and Pan's appearance did not tend to soften her objections ”

“ But while in the Mammals the larynx is a comparatively stable structure, in the birds the syrinx presents a very remarkable range of differences both in regard to its fundamental structural characters, as well as of musculature.
For the present it must suffice to give a brief survey of the essential features of the syrinx in the Passeres and, for systematic purposes, the musculature is the dominant factor. ”

“ In the second place, it has been proved by actual dissection that the shrike, which possesses no song gift worthy of the name, has a well-developed syrinx, while the mockingbird, our feathered minstrel par excellence, has a syrinx that is absolutely insignificant. On the other hand, the shrike's larynx, including the glottis, is a clumsy affair, whereas the mocker's larynx is indeed wonderfully made.
It must not be supposed, however, that the syrinx does not perform an important function in the production of avian melody. It acts as a regulator or meter of the air impelled from the lungs. ”

“ The syrinx has two pairs of tracheo-bronchial muscles; the tongue is thick and often concave; and Nitzsch [132] has recorded single or paired powder-down patches on the lower back of Elanoïdes, Elanus, Regerhinus, and Circus, with similar but scattered down-feathers in Gypaëtus.
The members of this Family range in size from the mighty Lämmergeier to the tiny Finch-Falcon (Microhierax) ; but they have many habits in common, though Polyborus and Milvago are somewhat terrestrial and vulturine, and a few species have crepuscular tendencies. ”

“ The syrinx is a modification of the lower part of the trachea and of the adjoining bronchi. Essential are vibrating membranes between the cartilaginous framework, and next, special muscles for regulating the tension. The majority of birds possess a pair of internal tympaniform membranes forming the inner or median walls of the bronchi, which are there furnished with semi-rings only. ”

“ The U-shaped furcula is sometimes entirely absent; a completely ossified orbital ring occurs in the Cacatuinae, Stringopinae, and many Psittacinae; the tongue is short and fleshy, being fringed in the Nestorinae, or having a brush of hairs towards the tip in the Loriinae and Nanodes; the uniquely modified syrinx has three pairs of tracheal and tracheo-bronchial muscles; and a crop is present. The aftershaft is large, the down of the adults and young is uniform, the latter being naked when hatched. ”

“ Briefly the syrinx, or organ of voice, of birds, is formed in part by the lowermost rings which form the tubular windpipe, and in part by the smaller pair of tubes which, running therefrom to the lungs, form the bronchi. These last are formed of semi-rings only, the inner wall of the tube being formed by very delicate translucent membranes. As air is forced from the lungs along the bronchi and up the windpipe, the modulation of the voice is effected by muscles which regulate the amount of air driven through the syrinx, and the height of the column in the tube ”

“ The tongue is rather long and pointed, being, however, rudimentary in Numenius; the nostrils are pervious, except in the Thinocorythidae, Glareolidae, and perhaps Dromas, and have at times a leathery operculum in Plovers; the syrinx is tracheo-bronchial, the furcula U-shaped; Parra has a decidedly muscular gizzard, and the Thinocorythidae possess a globular crop. The convoluted trachea of Rhynchaea, the papillae on the orbits of Chionis, the caruncles on the face of Machetes, and the loral wattles of Lobivanellus are fully described below. ”

“ Acrocephalus luscinia yamashinae (Takatsukasa) Nightingale Reed-warbler
Conopoderas yamashinae Takatsukasa, Dobutsu. Zasshi, 43, 1931, p. 485. (Type locality, Pagan.)
Tatare syrinx Oustalet (part) , Nouv. Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris, (3) , 7, 1895, p. 210 (Pagan) .
Acrocephalus syrinx Hartert (part) , Novit. Zool., 5, 1898, p. 58 (Pagan) ; Seale (part) , Occ. Papers Bernice P. Bishop Mus., 1, 1901, p. 53 (Pagan) .
Acrocephalus stentoreus syrinx Kuroda (part) , in Momiyama, Birds Micronesia, 1922, p. 67 (Pagan) .
Conopoderas yamashinae, Hand-list Japanese Birds, rev., 1932, p. ”

“ The beastie lives to eat, and his mouth is, it seems, his chief organ. This ugly head sits close on an eel-like body which finishes up in a point at the tail, where there is a fin, as a fish has.
The most conspicuous feature of the siren is the appendage placed branch-like on each side of the neck. These appendages have three divisions, each one with a separate attachment, and under each one is a small slit or opening into the siren’s throat. What are these branches waving like plumes? They are external gills, and very pretty they are, the only pretty things about a siren ”

“ Finally, the siren, or mermaid, who had a woman's face, and ended now as a bird, now as a fish; and who, according to Greek grammarians, had the form of a sparrow in its upper parts and of a woman in the lower, seems to be a lunar rather than a solar animal. The sirens allure navigators in particular, and fly after the ship of the cunning Odysseus, who stuffs his ears; for which reason they throw themselves in despair into the sea. The sirens are fairies like Circe; hence Horace [329] names them together ”

“ In zoology the siren (Siren lacertina) , or “mud-eel” of the Americans, one of the perennibranchiate tailed batrachians, is the type of the family Sirenidae, chiefly distinguished from the Proteidae by the structure of the jaws, which, instead of being beset with small teeth, are covered by a horny sheath like a beak; there are, however, rasp-like teeth on the palate, and a few on the inner side of the lower jaw, inserted on the splenial bone. The body is eel-like, black or blackish, and only the fore-limbs are present, but are feeble and furnished with four fingers. ”

“ The truth is, there is always air mixed in with water, and it is this air the larva breathes when the water goes in and out of the syringe. [Pg 19]
It uses the syringe for another purpose too. When it pleases it can shoot out the water with great force, and thus propel itself quite a distance.
By means of the syringe it can leap through the water faster than it can move by its slow-going legs.
Mollie wants to know if we can see the syringe.
No, it is inside the body.
But there is a kind of dragon fly that has a pair of gills outside, at the end of the abdomen, instead of the syringe inside. ”

“ Sciron rushed at him; but Theseus received him at the point of his sword, and the two fought furiously, while the robbers looked on, enjoying the game. Sciron was twice the size and weight of Theseus; but Theseus was the best swordsman in all Greece, and presently had him down.
“There,” said he, pricking Sciron’s throat with his sword, “you have had a lesson in manners. You shall wash my feet and wait on me before you go over the cliff after your victims. For I am not going away to leave a brigand like you alive behind me.” ”

“ My horse be hers, in payment of her trouble.
Heigho! this world's a dream, and life's a bubble!
(Going. Enter SKIRINA from the cottage.)
Reveal my name to none. Nay, do not cry,
You've wept me once before as dead. Goodbye.
SKIR.
Why, what's the matter? You are melancholy.
BARAK.
Oh, help me, wife, restrain this youth's mad folly;
He's off to Peking—means to dare the Sphinx!
SKIR.
He's sure to die—my heart within me sinks!
What put such silly nonsense in your head?
You've got brain fever; bless you, go to bed.
KALAF.
Pray save your breath. ”

“ Beyond the harbor there is always some breeze, therefore the fisherman hoisted his sails. Svirski, instead of steering toward Nice, turned to the open sea.
They went straight ahead, rocked by the swell. The sun was lowering toward evening. The rocky cliffs and the sea had grown purple; everything round about was calm, quiet, and so immense that, in spite of himself, Svirski thought how contemptible and petty life was in view of those elements which surrounded him at that moment. Suddenly he felt as if his own affairs, and those of other men, had gone somewhere very far off. ”

“ Svirski had marvelled always that the Renaissance had not recreated the symbol of death. Indeed, if Death had not always been silent, and had desired to complain, it would have said, „Why do people depict me as a skeleton? A skeleton is just what I have no wish to be, and will not be!" In Svirski's picture the genius of Sleep was delivering, mildly and quietly, the body of a maiden to the genius of Death, who, bending down, extinguished in silence the flame of a lamp burning at her head. ”

“ The bones of the living sirenians, the manatees and dugongs, so far from being light and porous, are unusually dense and solid. The sirenians live habitually at the bottom of shallow waters, feeding upon vegetable growths; and doubtless their bottom-feeding habits account for the solidity of the bones. A whale would float to the top, while a dugong would sink to the bottom, on the relaxation of all muscular movement. And we shall see that certain reptiles in the past had in all probability like bottom-feeding habits, because of the solidity of the bones of their skeletons. ”

“ Then he bent down two young fir trees, and bound Sinis between them, for all his struggling and his prayers; and let them go, and ended Sinis, and went on, leaving him to the hawks and crows.
Then he went over the hills toward Megara, keeping close along the Saronic Sea, till he came to the cliffs of Sciron, and the narrow path between the mountain and the sea.
And there he saw Sciron sitting by a fountain at the edge of the cliff. On his knees was a mighty club; and he had barred the path with stones, so that every one must stop who came up. ”

“ The Japanese artists rightly concluded they could float their Siren in any intellectual waters where Jonah in his whale could pass, or a fish appear with its penny. Nay, even in their primitive form the Sirens find their kith and kin still haunting all the coasts of northern Europe. A type of the Irish and Scottish Siren may be found in the very complete legend of one seen by John Reid, shipmaster of Cromarty. ”

“ Now Sciron was son-in-law to Cychreus, father-in-law to Æacus, and grandfather to Peleus and Telamon, who were both of them sons of Endeis, the daughter of Sciron and Chariclo; it was not probable, therefore, that the best of men should make these alliances with one who was worst, giving and receiving mutually what was of greatest value and most dear to them. Theseus, by their account, did not slay Sciron in his first journey to Athens, but afterwards, when he took Eleusis, a city of the Megarians, having circumvented Diodes, the governor. ”

“ At present we shall be chiefly interested in the seringueira (Siphonia elastica) .
The collection of the latex from the seringueira and the subsequent process of coagulation were simple enough. A seringueiro, or rubber-collector, started from his hut early every morning carrying with him a small steel axe or pick, the head of which was 3 in. long and shaped like a bird's beak; a tin bucket, and some barro—soft clay which had been soaked in water. He walked along the estrada or track which he had cleared for himself, leading from one rubber tree to the next. ”

“ De Sterny sat down by the chimney to warm his feet. "Deuced cold!--hand me the chartreuse, so--Yes, a refined siren if you like," he continued. "The siren has soft human arms with which she draws us into destructive pleasures, the chimera has claws with which she tears our heart. The siren entices us into the mire, the chimera lures us toward heaven,--only we don't reach the heaven, and we often find ourselves very well off in the mire,--deucedly well off! But saperment! you don't understand that yet." And he pulled Gesa's ear. ”

“ It is a pity that I did not ask you alone to this dinner—With a full moon it must be beautiful here, though on these heights I have always a throbbing of the heart. If you could see how it throbs at this moment; but look at my pulse, you can see it even through the glove."
She turned her palm, which was confined so tightly in the Danish glove as to be turned almost into a tube, and stretched it to Svirski. He took the hand in both of his, and looked at it.
"No," said he; "I cannot see the pulse clearly, but perhaps I can hear it." ”