You are on page 1of 54

EVOLVE - A Bridge between

Probability, Set Oriented Numerics, and


Evolutionary Computation VI 1st
Edition Alexandru-Adrian Tantar Et Al.
(Eds.)
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/evolve-a-bridge-between-probability-set-oriented-num
erics-and-evolutionary-computation-vi-1st-edition-alexandru-adrian-tantar-et-al-eds/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook Loucas

https://textbookfull.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-
loucas/

Quantum Mathematical Physics A Bridge between


Mathematics and Physics Felix Finster

https://textbookfull.com/product/quantum-mathematical-physics-a-
bridge-between-mathematics-and-physics-felix-finster/

Metaheuristic and Evolutionary Computation: Algorithms


and Applications Hasmat Malik

https://textbookfull.com/product/metaheuristic-and-evolutionary-
computation-algorithms-and-applications-hasmat-malik/

Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization


Arnaud Liefooghe

https://textbookfull.com/product/evolutionary-computation-in-
combinatorial-optimization-arnaud-liefooghe/
Evolutionary Computation in Scheduling Amir H Gandomi

https://textbookfull.com/product/evolutionary-computation-in-
scheduling-amir-h-gandomi/

Hepatology A Clinical Textbook Stefan Mauss Et Al.

https://textbookfull.com/product/hepatology-a-clinical-textbook-
stefan-mauss-et-al/

Anesthesiology David Longnecker Et Al.

https://textbookfull.com/product/anesthesiology-david-longnecker-
et-al/

New Horizons in Neurovascular Coupling: A Bridge


Between Brain Circulation and Neural Plasticity 1st
Edition Kazuto Masamoto

https://textbookfull.com/product/new-horizons-in-neurovascular-
coupling-a-bridge-between-brain-circulation-and-neural-
plasticity-1st-edition-kazuto-masamoto/

Obstetric Imaging: Fetal Diagnosis and Care Joshua A.


Copel Et Al.

https://textbookfull.com/product/obstetric-imaging-fetal-
diagnosis-and-care-joshua-a-copel-et-al/
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 674
Alexandru-Adrian Tantar
Emilia Tantar
Michael Emmerich
Pierrick Legrand
Lenuta Alboaie
Henri Luchian Editors

EVOLVE - A Bridge
between Probability,
Set Oriented Numerics,
and Evolutionary
Computation VI
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing

Volume 674

Series editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: kacprzyk@ibspan.waw.pl
About this Series
The series “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” contains publications on theory,
applications, and design methods of Intelligent Systems and Intelligent Computing. Virtually
all disciplines such as engineering, natural sciences, computer and information science, ICT,
economics, business, e-commerce, environment, healthcare, life science are covered. The list
of topics spans all the areas of modern intelligent systems and computing.
The publications within “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” are primarily
textbooks and proceedings of important conferences, symposia and congresses. They cover
significant recent developments in the field, both of a foundational and applicable character.
An important characteristic feature of the series is the short publication time and world-wide
distribution. This permits a rapid and broad dissemination of research results.
Advisory Board
Chairman
Nikhil R. Pal, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
e-mail: nikhil@isical.ac.in
Members
Rafael Bello Perez, Universidad Central “Marta Abreu” de Las Villas, Santa Clara, Cuba
e-mail: rbellop@uclv.edu.cu
Emilio S. Corchado, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
e-mail: escorchado@usal.es
Hani Hagras, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
e-mail: hani@essex.ac.uk
László T. Kóczy, Széchenyi István University, Győr, Hungary
e-mail: koczy@sze.hu
Vladik Kreinovich, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, USA
e-mail: vladik@utep.edu
Chin-Teng Lin, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
e-mail: ctlin@mail.nctu.edu.tw
Jie Lu, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: Jie.Lu@uts.edu.au
Patricia Melin, Tijuana Institute of Technology, Tijuana, Mexico
e-mail: epmelin@hafsamx.org
Nadia Nedjah, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
e-mail: nadia@eng.uerj.br
Ngoc Thanh Nguyen, Wroclaw University of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland
e-mail: Ngoc-Thanh.Nguyen@pwr.edu.pl
Jun Wang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
e-mail: jwang@mae.cuhk.edu.hk

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11156


Alexandru-Adrian Tantar
Emilia Tantar Michael Emmerich

Pierrick Legrand Lenuta Alboaie


Henri Luchian
Editors

EVOLVE - A Bridge
between Probability,
Set Oriented Numerics,
and Evolutionary
Computation VI

123
Editors
Alexandru-Adrian Tantar Pierrick Legrand
Computer Science and Communications Bâtiment Leyteire, URF Sciences
Research Unit et Modelisation
University of Luxembourg Université Bordeaux
Luxembourg Bordeaux
Luxembourg France

Emilia Tantar Lenuta Alboaie


Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Faculty of Computer Science
Reliability and Trust Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi
University of Luxembourg Iaşi
Luxembourg Romania
Luxembourg
Henri Luchian
Michael Emmerich Faculty of Computer Science
Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
Science Iasi
Leiden University Romania
Leiden
The Netherlands

ISSN 2194-5357 ISSN 2194-5365 (electronic)


Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing
ISBN 978-3-319-69708-6 ISBN 978-3-319-69710-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69710-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012944264

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018


This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or
for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature


The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface

The overarching goal of the EVOLVE international conference series is to build a


bridge between probability, statistics, set-oriented numerics, and evolutionary
computing, as to identify new common and challenging research aspects and solve
questions at the cross sections of these fields. There is a growing interest for
large-scale computational methods with robustness and efficiency guarantees. This
includes the challenge to develop sound and reliable methods, a unified terminol-
ogy, as well as theoretical foundations.
The 2015 edition of the EVOLVE conference was held on June 14–18, in Iaşi,
Romania, in conjunction with ECODAM Summer School on Evolutionary
Computing in Optimization and Data Mining. The aim of the conference is to
provide a bridge between probability, set-oriented numerics, and evolutionary
computation and to bring together experts from these disciplines. This was reflected
by the elaborate panel of invited speakers, namely Sorin Istrail (Brown University),
Dan Simovici (University of Massachusetts Boston), Kalyanmoy Deb (Michigan
State University), Carlos Coello Coello (CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico City), and
Kenneth De Jong (George Mason University) and tutorials by Pierre Del Moral
(University of New South Wales), Iryna Yevseyeva (Newcastle University, UK),
Michael Emmerich (Leiden University), and Madalina Drugan (Vrije Universiteit
Brussels), all being leading experts in their field. The broad focus of the EVOLVE
conference made it possible to discuss the connection between these related fields
of study in computational science. The selected papers published in the proceedings
book have been peer reviewed by an international committee of reviewers (at least
three reviews per paper) and have been revised and enhanced by the authors after
the conference. The contributions are categorized into five major parts, which are as
follows:
– Multicriteria and Set-Oriented Optimization;
– Evolution in ICT Security;
– Computational Game Theory;
– Theory on Evolutionary Computation;
– Applications of Evolutionary Algorithms.

v
vi Preface

The 2015 edition shows a major progress in the aim to bring disciplines together,
the research on a number of topics that have been discussed in previous editions
of the conference matured over time, and methods have found their ways in
applications. In this sense, the book can be considered an important milestone in
this ongoing research effort.

June 2015 Alexandru-Adrian Tantar


Michael Emmerich
Emilia Tantar
Lenuta Alboaie
Henri Luchian
Pierrick Legrand
Organization

EVOLVE 2015 was organized by the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi,
Romania, in cooperation with the Leiden University, the Netherlands, the
University of Luxembourg, and the University of Bordeaux, Inria Bordeaux
Sud-Ouest.

Executive Committee

General Chair

Henri Luchian Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania

Local Chair

Lenuta Alboaie Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania

Proceedings Chair

Alexandru Tantar University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Program Chairs

Michael Emmerich Leiden University, The Netherlands


Pierrick Legrand University of Bordeaux, France

vii
viii Organization

Financial Chair

Corina Forascu Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania

Tutorial Chair

Emilia Tantar University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Advisory Board

Enrique Alba University of Málaga, Spain


François Caron Inria Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, France
Frédéric Ciérou Inria Rennes Bretagne Atlantique, France
Carlos A. Coello Coello CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico
Michael Dellnitz University of Paderborn, Germany
Frédéric Guinand University of Le Havre, France
Arnaud Guyader Université Rennes 2, Inria Rennes Bretagne
Atlantique, France
Arturo Hernández-Aguirre CIMAT, Guanajuato, Mexico
Günter Rudolph TU Dortmund, Germany
Marc Schoenauer Inria Saclay – Île-de-France, University Paris Sud,
France
Franciszek Seredynski Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
El-Ghazali Talbi Polytech’Lille University of Lille 1, France
Marco Tomassini University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Massimiliano Vasile University of Strathclyde, UK

Special Sessions Chairs

Vito Basto Fernandes Leiria University, Portugal


Iryna Yevseyeva Newcastle University, UK
Michael T.M. Emmerich Leiden University, The Netherlands
Rodica Ioana Lung University Babes-Bolyai, Romania
Dan Dumitrescu University Babes-Bolyai, Romania
Jing Liu Xidian University, China
Asep Maulana Leiden University, The Netherlands
Lenuta Alboaie Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
Adrian Iftene Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
Marc Eduard Frincu University of Southern California, USA
Stephane Genaud ENSIIE Engineering School, France
Daniela Zaharie West University of Timisoara, Romania
Organization ix

Mihaela Breaban Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania


Madalina Ionita Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
Dragos Gavrilut Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania

Program Committee

Series Chairs

Pierre del Moral Inria Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, France


Alexandru Tantar University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Emilia Tantar University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Michael Emmerich Leiden University, The Netherlands
Pierrick Legrand University of Bordeaux, France

All contributions went through a thorough full-paper peer review process. We


thank the referees for their voluntary effort.

Referees

Josiah Adeyemo Stephane Genaud Eduardo


Thomas Baeck David Iclanzan Rodriguez-Tello
Vitor Basto Fernandes Adrian Iftene Christoph Schommer
Francisco Chicano Ahmed Kattan Ignacio
Tudor Dan Mihoc Joanna Kolodziej Segovia-Dominguez
Luis Gerardo De Pierrick Legrand Ofer Shir
La Fraga Rui Li Mihai Suciu
Andre Deutz Jing Liu Alexandru-Adrian Tantar
Jianguo Ding Francisco Luna Emilia Tantar
Dan Dumitrescu Rodica Lung Leonardo Trujillo
Enrique Dunn Asep Maulana Sergio Ivvan Valdez
Michael T.M. Emmerich James McDermott Hao Wang
Vitor Basto Fernandes Nicolas Monmarche Fatos Xhafa
Francisco Fernandez Sanaz Mostaghim Iryna Yevseyeva
Marc Eduard Frincu Reka Nagy Daniela Zaharie
Edgar Galvan Gustavo Olague Zhiwei Zhang
Noemi Gasko Eunice Ponce-De-Leon
x Organization

Invited Speakers

Kalyanmoy Deb (Koenig Endowed Chair Professor, Michigan State University,


East Lansing, USA): A Theory-Based Termination Condition for Convergence in
Real-Parameter Evolutionary Algorithms
Prof. Pierre Del Moral (University of New South Wales, Australia): Particle
methodologies: a bridge across mathematics, physics, biology and information
theory
Prof. Kenneth De Jong (George Mason University, USA): High-Performance
Evolutionary Algorithms
Prof. Dr. Carlos Artemio Coello Coello (University of Massachusetts Boston,
USA): Problems in Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization, CINVESTAV,
Mexico
Prof. Dr. Dan Simovici (University of Massachusetts Boston, USA): Exploring the
Graph of the Web
Prof. Sorin Istrail (Brown University, USA): Applications to Medical Genetics and
Computational Genomics

Invited Tutorials

Dr. Iryna Yevseyeva (School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, UK):


Multicriteria Decision-Aiding: Compensating and Non-compensating Methods
Dr. Madalina Drugan (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium): Evolutionary
Reinforcement Learning or Reinforcement Evolutionary Algorithms?
Dr. Michael T.M. Emmerich (LIACS, Leiden University): Set-Oriented
Multicriteria Optimization: Deterministic and Stochastic Methods
Organization xi

Sponsoring Institutions and Partners


Contents

Multicriteria and Set-Oriented Optimization


Aggregate Selection in Multi-objective Biochemical Optimization
via the Average Cuboid Volume Indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Susanne Rosenthal, Bernd Freisleben, and Markus Borschbach
On Gradient-Based and Swarm-Based Algorithms
for Set-Oriented Bicriteria Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Wilco Verhoef, André H. Deutz, and Michael T.M. Emmerich
Quadcriteria Optimization of Binary Classifiers: Error Rates,
Coverage, and Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Vitor Basto-Fernandes, Iryna Yevseyeva, David Ruano-Ordás,
Jiaqi Zhao, Florentino Fdez-Riverola, José Ramón Méndez,
and Michael T.M. Emmerich
Parameter Identification of Stochastic Gene Regulation Models
by Indicator-Based Evolutionary Level Set Approximation . . . . . . . . . . 50
Alexander Nezhinsky and Michael T.M. Emmerich

Evolution in ICT Security


On Using Cognition for Anomaly Detection in SDN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Emilia Tantar, Alexandru-Adrian Tantar, Miroslaw Kantor,
and Thomas Engel
Feature Creation Using Genetic Algorithms for Zero False
Positive Malware Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Razvan Benchea, Dragos Gavrilut, and Henri Luchian
Multi-centroid Cluster Analysis in Malware Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Ciprian Oprişa, George Cabău, and Gheorghe Sebestyen Pal

xiii
xiv Contents

Computational Game Theory


Cooperation in Multicriteria Repeated Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Réka Nagy, Mihai Suciu, and Dan Dumitrescu
Evolving Game Strategies in a Dynamic Cournot
Oligopoly Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Mihai Alexandru Suciu, Rodica-Ioana Lung, Noémi Gaskó,
Tudor-Dan Mihoc, and Dan Dumitrescu

Theory on Evolutionary Computation


Efficient Real-Parameter Single Objective Optimizer
Using Hierarchical CMA-ES Solvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Madalina M. Drugan
Multi-point Efficient Global Optimization Using Niching
Evolution Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Hao Wang, Thomas Bäck, and Michael T.M. Emmerich
Community Detection in NK Landscapes - An Empirical Study
of Complexity Transitions in Interactive Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Asep Maulana, André H. Deutz, Erik Schultes,
and Michael T.M. Emmerich

Applications of Evolutionary Algorithms


River Flow Forecasting Using an Improved Artificial
Neural Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Josiah Adeyemo, Oluwaseun Oyebode, and Derek Stretch
Evolutionary Cost-Sensitive Balancing:
A Generic Method for Imbalanced Classification Problems . . . . . . . . . . 194
Camelia Lemnaru and Rodica Potolea
Balancing the Subtours for Multiple TSP Approached with ACS:
Clustering-Based Approaches Vs. MinMax Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Raluca Necula, Madalina Raschip, and Mihaela Breaban
Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Multicriteria and Set-Oriented
Optimization
Aggregate Selection in Multi-objective
Biochemical Optimization via the Average
Cuboid Volume Indicator

Susanne Rosenthal1 , Bernd Freisleben2 , and Markus Borschbach1(B)


1
University of Applied Sciences, FHDW, Hauptstr. 2, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany
{Susanne.Rosenthal,Markus.Borschbach}@fhdw.de
2
University of Marburg, Hans-Meerwein-Str. 6, Marburg, Germany
freisleb@informatik.uni-marburg.de

Abstract. The identification of peptides that optimize several phys-


iochemical properties is an important task in the drug design process.
Multi-objective genetic algorithms are efficient and cost-effective meth-
ods to scan the highly complex search space for optimal candidate pep-
tides. A multi-objective genetic algorithm called NGSA-II has been pro-
posed in previous work with the aim of producing diverse high-quality
peptides in a low number of generations. An important component of
NSGA-II is the selection process that determines the high-quality indi-
viduals for the succeeding generation. This paper presents two kinds of
selection strategies for NSGA-II to guide the search process towards high-
quality peptides while maintaining diversity within the genetic material.
The proposed selection strategies rely both on tournaments, and use a
combination of fitness-proportionate selection and a discerning selection
criterion, which is front-based in one case and indicator-based in the
other case. The two strategies are compared to each other with respect
to the search behavior on a generic three-dimensional molecular mini-
mization problem.

Keywords: Indicator-based selection · Average cuboid volume ·


Aggregate selection · Multi-objective molecular optimization

1 Introduction

Peptides play a central role in the area of drug design due to their high specificity
and low toxicity profile. In the drug design process, native peptides or promising
protein fragments are transformed into pharmaceutically acceptable components
that have several optimized physiochemical properties [1].
A computer-aided drug design process is cost-effective and time-efficient. For
peptide optimization, a customized multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOEA)
called Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) has been proposed
with sophisticated mutation and recombination methods [12,13]. Although these
c Springer International Publishing AG 2018
A.-A. Tantar et al. (eds.), EVOLVE - A Bridge between Probability, Set Oriented Numerics,
and Evolutionary Computation VI, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 674,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69710-9_1
4 S. Rosenthal et al.

variation operators have a considerable influence on the algorithm’s performance,


the selection operator is the main component that scans the search space and
guides the search process [2]. In general, a good selection strategy is characterized
by an appropriate balance between exploration and exploitation in the search
process. Bäck [3] has shown that the selection process controls this balance
by guiding the process more or less in the direction of optimal solutions. A
search process is either more exploitative in the case that the search is directed
stringently towards an optimum solution or more explorative otherwise.
In this paper, we present novel selection strategies for NSGA-II applied to
molecular optimization. The design of the presented selection strategies is moti-
vated by the fundamental tasks of the selection operator on guiding the search in
a MOEA. Two selection strategies are presented. Both are based on tournament
selection and a combination of fitness-proportionate selection and a discern-
ing selection criterion, which is front-based in the first selection strategy and
indicator-based in the other one. The Average Cuboid Volume (ACV) indica-
tor is used as the discerning selection criterion in the indicator-based selection
strategy and has been recently introduced as a convergence indicator with the
ultimate aim of comparing solution sets of different sizes according to the prox-
imity to the Pareto front in a statistically reasonable way [23]. The probability of
selecting individuals by fitness-proportionate selection or the discerning criterion
is controlled via a probability parameter. These two strategies are compared to
each other to characterize their search behavior. The investigation of the selec-
tion performance also includes fine-tuning of the parameters. This comparison
is based on a generic three-dimensional molecular minimization problem.
This paper is structured as follows. In Sect. 2, related work is discussed. The
discerning selection criterion and the convergence indicator ACV are presented in
Sect. 3. In Sect. 4, the novel selection strategies are introduced. Section 5 presents
the remaining components of the customized NSGA-II. In Sect. 6, experimental
results are presented. Section 7 concludes the paper and outlines areas of future
work.

2 Related Work

Different selection strategies have been proposed in the field of Evolutionary


Algorithms (EA). Fitness-proportionate selection strategies are stochastic meth-
ods. These strategies are characterized by a non-zero probability of each solution
to be selected for reproduction: High-quality solutions have a higher chance to be
selected than low-quality ones. The most common strategies are Roulette Wheel
Selection (RWS) [4] and Stochastic Universal Sampling (SUS) [17]. These strate-
gies are usually visualized by a spinning wheel where each portion on the wheel
represents an individual and the size of the portion is proportional to the indi-
vidual’s fitness over the total fitness of the entire population. RWS selects one
individual by spinning the wheel, whereas in the case of SUS n equidistant point-
ers are placed around the wheel and n individuals are selected per spin. A more
common selection strategy is Tournament Selection (TS) [5]. The motivation for
Aggregate Selection in Multi-objective Biochemical Optimization 5

this strategy is the diversity within the genetic material ensured by change. Sev-
eral individuals are randomly selected from the population and compared to each
other regarding their fitness. The best individual is selected for reproduction. The
rank-based selection strategy assigns a selection probability to each individual
based on the discrete rank relative to the others in the entire population [6].
This probability assignment is realized via a mapping function that is optionally
linear or non-linear. The selection performance strongly depends on the type of
the mapping function. A more recent category are the indicator-based selection
strategies. These strategies make use of an indicator as the selection criterion
and have been proposed in the area of Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithms
(MOEA): The Indicator-Based Evolutionary Algorithm (IBEA) [8] makes use of
a selection strategy that starts with the selection of the fittest individual and
deletes it from the population. The fitness values of the remaining individuals
are updated by a binary quality indicator, such as the epsilon-indicator I , the
hypervolume indicator IHV [8] or the R2 -indicator [9]. In general, an arbitrary
indicator is applicable in IBEA. The indicator R2 is a recently introduced indica-
tor to evaluate the optimal solution set [10]. R2 does not require a Pareto optimal
reference set, but it depends on weight vectors and an ideal reference point. It
is popular for its low computational complexity, but for an increasing number
of objectives the calculation becomes as expensive as the hypervolume [11]. The
number of weight vectors is challenging, especially scaling them with the number
of objectives. R2 and the hypervolume are correlated by Pearsons’ correlation
coefficient with a statistically significant value of 0.76 [11]. Another indicator-
based selection strategy is used in the S-metric Selection Evolutionary Multi-
Objective Algorithm (SMS-EMOA) [7]. SMS-EMOA is a steady-state algorithm
and is especially designed to use the hypervolume indicator. The hypervolume
indicator serves as the selection criterion: In each iteration, a new individual is
produced, and based on the value of the hypervolume it is decided if this individ-
ual enters the non-dominated archive pool or not by calculating the hypervolume
of non-dominated solution subsets excluding one of the non-dominated solutions.
SPEA [19], PESA [20] and PAES [21] use region-based selection. SPEA also
makes use of binary tournament selection. The individuals for the succeeding
generation are selected from the union of the current and an external set con-
taining all non-dominated solutions. The selection probability of an individual
depends on a strength value that reflects the number of individuals dominated
by or equal to this individual. The individual-based selection in PESA divides
the objective space into hyperboxes. The selection probability of an individual
depends on a squeeze factor that is the number of individuals sharing the same
box. Binary tournament selection is used and the individual with the lowest
squeeze factor is chosen. PAES is a (1+1) evolutionary strategy and uses an
archive pool for selection and the hypergrid strategy. The selection is performed
between a current solution and a mutant regarding the dominance. If the mutant
enters the archive pool, the individual with the highest grid location count is
deleted.
6 S. Rosenthal et al.

3 The Average Cuboid Volume Indicator


The ACV indicator has been introduced by Rosenthal and Borschbach [23].
ACV is intended to evaluate the global convergence behavior of differently sized
populations for comparison purposes. The ACV indicator is given by

1 
n k
ACV = ( (xij − rj )), (1)
n i=1 j=1

where n is the number of individuals that are evaluated, k the number of objec-
tives and rj the pre-defined reference point. At this point, it is assumed that
the Multi-Objective Optimization Problem (MOP) has to be minimized. In this
case, the pre-defined reference point is chosen as the theoretical minimum limit
of the true Pareto front, which is usually known in a real-world MOP. As a
consequence, the lower the ACV indicator values are, the better is the global
convergence behavior of the evaluated solution set.
There are three main advantages of this indicator. First, ACV does not
require knowledge of the true Pareto front, which is usually unknown in real-
world problems. Second, ACV has a low computational complexity even if the
number of objectives increases. Third, ACV reflects the convergence behavior of
differently sized populations in a statistically reasonable way.
A normalized version of the ACV indicator is proposed below to ensure that
all objective function values have the same influence on the indicator values.
Therefore, a mapping of the objective values in the same range of [0; 1] is per-
formed by dividing every difference of the objective value and the corresponding
reference point component by the maximum norm:
⎛ ⎞
1  ⎝  (xij − rj ) ⎠
n k
ACVscaled = , with x̄j = maxi {xij }, ∀j = 1, ..., k (2)
n i=1 j=1 x̄j

Furthermore, the ACV indicator is also used to gain an insight into the
spatial volume covered by the optimal solutions relative to the volume of the
entire population. Therefore, a relative ACV measure is proposed to evaluate
the average cuboid volume by the solutions of the non-dominated solutions or
the individuals of the first front in relation to the average cuboid volume of the
entire population:
f k
1
f i=1 ( j=1 (xij − rj ))
ACVrel = n k
, (3)
1
n i=1 ( j=1 (xij − rj ))

where f is the number of non-dominated solutions in the population. ACVrel


is quite different in terms of its significance from the hypervolume indicator,
since the quality of the non-dominated solutions is not related to the quality
of the entire population by the hypervolume, which usually refers only to the
non-dominated solutions. However, Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the
Aggregate Selection in Multi-objective Biochemical Optimization 7

ACVrel and the hypervolume values is statistically significant with a value of


0.6. A very small value of ACV (ACV ≈ 0) indicates that ACV of the first front
is much smaller than ACV of the whole population. In the case of ACVrel ≈ 1,
the ACV value of the first front is relatively high compared to the ACV value
of the whole population. A further interpretation of the relative ACV values has
to take into account the absolute ACV of the whole population.

4 Selection Strategies for NGSA-II


There are several issues when designing an appropriate selection strategy for a
MOEA in biochemical optimization. The first issue refers to the question of how
to guide the search in the direction of the Pareto optimal solutions. The second
issue is to ensure a high spread of the non-dominated solutions. The third issue
refers to the specific purpose of biochemical optimization: The selection has to
ensure a high diversity of the genetic material inherited to the succeeding pop-
ulation. The high diversity of the genetic material supports the global search
process. Ideally, the selection strategy has to comply with these three issues at
the same time. Furthermore, another component is important for the selection
process especially in the field of molecular optimization. The role of change in
the selection procedure imitates the aspect of change in a natural evolutionary
process. The proposed two selection strategies for NSGA-II differ from the tradi-
tional selection process of NSGA-II in avoiding the critical component crowding
distance to provide a reliably good algorithm performance independent of the
problem dimension.

4.1 Aggregate Selection


The aggregate selection strategy is motivated by the idea of guiding the search
in the direction of high-quality solutions while maintaining a high diversity of
the genetic material within the succeeding generation. This strategy starts with
tournament selection of x individuals from the population (Fig. 1) to include the
aspect of change of a natural evolutionary process in the selection strategy. The
solutions of the tournament set are ranked into fronts via fast non-dominated
sorting [18]. From this ranked tournament set, one individual is randomly cho-
sen from the first front with a probability p0 to guide the search process in
the direction of high-quality solutions with a particular probability. With a
probability 1 − p0 , individuals are selected via front-based Stochastic Universal
Sampling (SUS) selection to ensure the diversity of the genetic material and
a non-dominated solution spread. SUS provides the opportunity to low quality
solutions to find their way in the succeeding generation. Low-quality solutions
potentially have high-quality genetic motifs, which produces high-quality solu-
tions in later generations. The number N of pointers is the number of identified
fronts by fast non-dominated sorting, and the segments are equal to the front
size. Therefore, the parameters of this selection strategy are the tournament size
(t.s.) and the probability of choosing the individuals from the first front. The
value p0 = 0% is further referred to as SUS selection.
8 S. Rosenthal et al.

Fig. 1. Aggregate selection strategy Fig. 2. ACV-based selection strategy


with SUS.

4.2 ACV-Based Selection

The ACV-based selection strategy (Fig. 2) is equal to aggregate selection where


the selection criterion - an individual is selected from the first front - is sub-
stituted by an ACV-based selection criterion. The basic idea of the ACV-based
selection criterion is motivated by the following consideration of the aggregate
selection strategy: Random selection of one individual from the first front does
not guarantee the selection of a high-quality individual with respect to all objec-
tive values, since the ranking into the first front is relative to the objective values
of other individuals in the tournament set. An ACVscaled value for each indi-
vidual of the tournament set is determined and the individual with the lowest
ACVscaled -value is selected. The ACV -value of an individual x0 is calculated by
applying Eq. (2) on X = {x0 } with n = 1. The selection criterion differing from
aggregate selection is highlighted. The individual with the lowest ACVscaled -
value is the highest-quality solution and selected for reproduction. In the case
of multiple lowest ACVscaled -values, a random one is selected.
Aggregate Selection in Multi-objective Biochemical Optimization 9

4.3 Computational Complexity


The selection components that are mainly responsible for the difference of the
computational complexity (CC) between the aggregate and ACV-based selection
are Non-Dominated Sorting (NDS) of the tournament set and determination of
the ACVscaled -values for each solution in the tournament set. In the following, k
is the number of objective functions and N the t.s. The CC of NDS is O(k·N 2 ) [18].
The selection of the solutions with the lowest ACVscaled -value starts with the
determination of the maximum value for each objective: This takes k · (N − 1)
operations for comparison. Furthermore, k · N divisions are performed to com-
plete the scaling. The calculation of ACVscaled for a t.s. of N takes k subtractions
and (k − 1) multiplications. The determination of the minimal ACVscaled -value
takes (N − 1) operations for comparison. In total, this procedure has a CC of
k · (N − 1) + k · N + N · (k + (k − 1)) + (N − 1) = 4kN − k − 1 operations, which
is a total CC of O(k · N ) and therefore lower than the CC for NDS.

5 Other Components of NSGA-II


5.1 Individual Encoding and Search Space
The individuals represent peptides of length 20. The individuals are character
strings of length 20 consisting of the 20 characters symbolizing the canonical
amino acids. As a consequence, the search space has a complexity of 2020 . This
encoding is the most intuitive way and it represents all feasible - and only fea-
sible - solutions. Another advantage is that the biochemical objective functions
make use of this character encoding. Therefore, this encoding does not require
a conversion of the data format.

5.2 Variation Operators


Several mutation and recombination operators have been tested within NSGA-II
[12–14]. The combination of recombination and mutation operators that achieved
the best performance is the linear recombination operator ‘LiDeRP’ and the
adaptation of the deterministic dynamic mutation of Bäck and Schütz [15]. The
combination of LiDeRP and the deterministic dynamic mutation provides the
most successful balance of exploitation and exploration of the search process.
The recombination operator LiDeRP varies the number of recombination
points over the generations via a linearly decreasing function:
l l/2
xR (t) = − · t, (4)
2 T
which depends on the length of the individual l, the total number of the gener-
ations T and the index of the actual generation t.
The deterministic dynamic operator of Bäck and Schütz [15] determines the
mutation probabilities via the following function with a = 2.
l − 2 −1
pBS = (a + t) , (5)
T −1
10 S. Rosenthal et al.

The mutation rate is bounded by (0; 12 ]. The mutation rate of the first gener-
ation has been adapted to a lower starting mutation rate with a = 5. This is due
the fact that the combination of a high mutation and recombination probability
corresponds to a random creation of an individual.

5.3 Fitness Functions


Three fitness functions - also termed objective functions - are used in the bio-
chemical minimization problem. These fitness functions are as generic as possible
in the way that physio-chemical characteristics of peptides are usually calculated
by the descriptor values of each amino acid. The biochemical functions work on
the amino acid sequence or the primary structure. Two fitness functions are
provided by the BioJava library [16]: The first function determines the Molec-
ular Weight (MW) of each individual, since molecules for drug design have to
provide a maximally low MW for a good membrane permeability. The second
function is the Needleman-Wunsch algorithm that is used as a method for the
global sequence alignment to a pre-defined reference individual. This algorithm
refers to the common hypothesis that a high similarity between molecules refers
to similar molecular properties. The third fitness function calculates the average
hydrophilicity via the hydrophilicity scale of Hopp and Woods with a window
size equal to the peptide length [22]. A common problem of drug peptides is a low
solubility in aqueous solutions, especially peptides with stretches of hydrophobic
amino acids. These fitness functions act comparatively, since the individuals are
compared to a non-varying reference individual and therefore the MOP has to
be minimized. The absolute value is applied to the fitness function values to
achieve only positive function values.

6 Experimental Results
6.1 Experimental Setting
The starting population has a size of 100 randomly initialized individuals repre-
senting 20-mer peptides. For statistical reasons, each configuration is repeated
30 times until the 18th generation since we focus on early convergence [12,13].
These experiments are evaluated with regard to their convergence velocity and
the diversity within the solutions. The ACV indicators ACVscaled and ACVrel
as proposed in Eqs. (2) and (3) are used as convergence metrics for the entire
population and the quality of the Pareto optimal set. The reference point is cho-
sen as (0/0/0) which is the theoretical minimum limit of the Pareto front for the
three-dimensional minimization problem. The diversity within the population is
assessed via:
 ¯
|dij − d| n n(n − 1)
Δ= with N = = ,
i,j=1,i<j
N 2 2
Aggregate Selection in Multi-objective Biochemical Optimization 11

Fig. 3. ACVscaled of aggregate selection Fig. 4. ACVscaled of ACV selection with


with different p0 -values and t.s. = 10. different p0 -values and t.s. = 10.

where dij is the Euclidean distance of each possible combination of solutions. n


is the number of solutions, here n = 100, and d¯ is the average distance over all
determined distances. The values of diversity are scaled under the same criterion
for an optimal graphical presentation. Boxplots are created for the ACV and
diversity values of each configuration to provide important information about
location parameters and spread of the numerical data. Outliers are symbolized by
dots. An outlier is more than 1.5-times of the inter-quartile range away from the
boxplot quartiles. In general, a good performance of a configuration is achieved
if the ACV value is as small as possible and the diversity is as large as possible.

6.2 Evaluation

Two categories of configurations are evaluated for each selection strategy: The
first test series performs a variation of the selection parameter - the probability
parameter p0 . Different probabilities are tested with the fixed tournament size
parameter t.s. = 10. Figure 3 represents the effect of aggregate selection with
different values of the probability p0 . The increase of p0 results in a decrease
of the ACVscaled -values in differing intensity: The ACVscaled decrease by an
increase of p0 from 0% to 50% is remarkably higher than the decrease intensity
for a further probability increase. SUS or p0 = 0% achieves a remarkably high
spread of the ACVscaled -values indicating an unstable selection process. Figure 5
represents the diversity achieved with the aggregation selection and different p0 -
values. SUS achieves the highest diversity, the further increase of p0 results in a
decrease of the diversity. The comparison of Figs. 3 and 5 reveals that the conver-
gence improvement is at the cost of diversity. The convergence improvement of
p0 = 50% to p0 = 60% is, on the average, higher than the average decrease of the
diversity values for the same p0 -value. Therefore, the optimal choice is configured
to p0 = 60%. Figure 7 depicts the ACVrel -values of the aggregate selection for
12 S. Rosenthal et al.

Fig. 5. Diversity of aggregate selection Fig. 6. Diversity of ACV-based selection


with different p0 -values and t.s. = 10. with different p0 -values and t.s. = 10.

the different p0 -values. The increase of p0 in this case results in a slight but con-
tinuous increase of the ACVrel -values indicating that the ACV-values of the first
front solutions are relatively high compared to the ACV-values of the entire pop-
ulation. These results reveal that the front-based selection of the tournament set
does not guarantee the selection of the highest quality solutions. Figures 4, 6 and
8 depict the ACVscaled , diversity and ACVrel -values of the ACV-based selection
with three different p0 -values. Figure 4 reveals that an increase of p0 results in a
significant decrease of ACVscaled . The diversity values (Fig. 6) reveal, on the aver-
age, slight differences for the different p0 -values. The highest diversity values on
the average are achieved for p= 50%. The comparison of ACVscaled and diversity
values of the aggregate and ACV-based selection expose that the ACVscaled and
diversity values of the aggregate selection with p0 = 60% are highly related to the
corresponding values of the ACV-based selection with p0 = 50%. Figure 8 repre-
sents the ACVrel -values of the ACV-based selection. The increase of p0 = 40%
to 50% results in an improvement of the ACVrel -values. A further increase of
p0 reveals a stagnation of ACVrel . This indicates that the increase of p0 poten-
tially provides the guarantee selecting the highest-quality solutions. In general,
the ACVrel -values of the ACV-based selection are lower than the corresponding
values for the aggregate selection. Since aggregate selection with p0 = 60% and
ACV-based selection p0 = 50% achieve the best performance according to con-
vergence and diversity, the variation of the parameter t.s. is investigated for a
further improvement. Figures 9 to 11 depict the ACVscaled , diversity and ACVrel -
values of the test runs with the aggregate selection and different t.s. The increase
of the t.s. results in a continuous decrease of ACVscaled (Fig. 9) and therefore
in an improved convergence performance. The higher solution number in the
tournament set provides a higher-quality diversity between the solutions. The
diversity reveals slight changes of the values by the increase of the t.s on the
average; the diversity values are the highest for t.s. = 10 (Fig. 10). Otherwise,
Aggregate Selection in Multi-objective Biochemical Optimization 13

the results of ACVrel (Fig. 11) reveal that t.s. = 10 achieves the highest val-
ues and therefore the lowest quality non-dominated solutions on the average. In
general, the optimal value for t.s. is a trade-off between a higher computational
complexity in every iteration and the performance improvement. From this point
of view, the optimal choice of t.s. is about 10 for the aggregate selection strategy.
Figures 12 to 14 present the ACVscaled , diversity and ACVrel -values of the
test runs with the ACV-based selection and different t.s. The increase of the t.s.
from 6 to 10 results in a slight decrease of ACVscaled on the average (Fig. 12).
A further increase to t.s. = 15, ACVscaled almost stagnates. The increase of
the t.s. reveals an improvement of the diversity, once a higher improvement is
achieved by the increase of t.s. = 6 to 10 and a stagnation of the values by a
further increase (Fig. 10). The increase of the t.s. from 6 to 10 reveals a significant
increase of ACVrel (Fig. 14) and therefore an improvement of the non-dominated
solution quality. Otherwise, the results are skewed visibly by the position of the
median. A further increase of the t.s. to 15 results only in a slightly decreased
ACVrel . The reason for these results is the low range of the solution quality in a
tournament set of size 6. A further increase of the t.s. above 10 does not provide
a further quality enhancement according to convergence and diversity, since the
enhancement is restricted by the probability of selecting high-quality solutions
from the entire population in the tournament set. The optimal value for the t.s.
in the case of the ACV-based selection is easily accessible as t.s. = 10.
These performance results are compared to the performance of the traditional
and character-encoded NSGA-II. The process of NSGA-II is slightly changed
to preserve diversity: Binary tournament selection is used for parent selection,
whereas each individual is allowed to be presented two times as parent. Further,
single-point recombination is used and one-point mutation of each individual is
performed. The individuals for the succeeding generation are selected by binary
tournament selection with a preference for the solution with the largest crowding

Fig. 7. ACVrel of aggregate selection with Fig. 8. ACVrel of ACV-based selection


different p0 -values and t.s. = 10. with different p0 -values and t.s. = 10.
14 S. Rosenthal et al.

Fig. 9. ACVscaled of aggre- Fig. 10. Diversity of aggre- Fig. 11. ACVrel of aggre-
gate selection with different gate selection with different gate selection with different
t.s. values and p0 = 60%. t.s. values and p0 = 60%. t.s. values and p0 = 60%.

Fig. 12. ACVscaled of ACV- Fig. 13. Diversity of aggre- Fig. 14. ACVrel of ACV-
based selection with differ- gate selection with different based selection with differ-
ent t.s. values and p0 = 50%. t.s. values and p0 = 50%. ent t.s. values and p0 = 50%.

distance value. Figure 15 presents the performance results of this traditional


NSGA-II configuration. Even with the diversity preserving method, the diver-
sity values are the lowest compared to the performance results presented above
(Figs. 10 and 13). Furthermore, the ACVscaled values are remarkably higher and
therefore, NSGA-II provides the worst convergence compared to the results
of Figs. 9 and 12. The ACVrel results are also the highest and therefore the
non-dominated solutions provide are of a low quality compared to the entire
population.
Aggregate Selection in Multi-objective Biochemical Optimization 15

Fig. 15. Performance of NSGA-II with diversity preserving selection of the succeeding
generation: (a) ACVscaled , (b) Diversity and (c) ACVrel .

7 Conclusion

This paper has presented two types of selection strategies for the determination
of the succeeding generation in NSGA-II, a multi-objective genetic algorithm
applied to biochemical optimization. The focus of the selection strategies is the
guidance of the search process towards high-quality solutions while maintaining
genetic diversity. Both strategies have in common that they are based on tourna-
ment selection and are a combination of SUS as fitness-proportionate selection
and a discerning selection criterion. Aggregate selection uses a front-based strat-
egy as the discerning selection criterion, whereas ACV-based selection makes use
of the ACV indicator. In aggregate selection, the selection of a random individ-
ual from the first front does not guarantee the selection of the optimal solution
with respect to each objective function. To overcome this problem, ACV-based
selection is used to select the high-quality individuals in the multi-objective
sense based on the objective function values. Aggregate selection is compared
to ACV-based selection in terms of search behavior. In general, our evaluation
reveals that both selection strategies are comparable according to the conver-
gence behavior and the diversity, especially in the case of the optimum parame-
ter setting: p0 = 60%, t.s. = 10 for aggregate selection and p0 = 50%, t.s. = 10.
The advantage of ACV-based selection is the significantly higher quality, on
the average, of the first front and therefore of the non-dominated solutions. The
ACV indicator used as a discerning selection criterion guarantees a more focused
search process in the direction of high-quality solutions.
The presented strategies have the potential to be applied to other molecular
MOPs, since the proposed 3D-MOP is as generic as possible regarding the fitness
assignment of physiochemical properties. In the case that the objective functions
16 S. Rosenthal et al.

are the absolute values of the difference between the fitness value of the candi-
date peptide and the fitness value of the reference peptide, the zero point is an
advisable choice for the ACV indicator. Otherwise, the reference point has to be
newly defined. The influence of the reference point has not been investigated in
this work and is thus the limitation of this study.
In future work, the experiments will be performed on a higher-dimensional
biochemical optimization problem. The investigation of the impact of selection
strategies on the optimization performance of real-valued MOPs is also in inter-
esting area of future work.

References
1. Otvos, L.: Peptide-Based Drug Design: Methods and Protocols. Humana Press
Inc., Totowa (2000)
2. Dumitrescu, D., Lazzerini, B., Jain, L.C., et al.: Evolutionary Computation. CRC
Press LLC, Boca Raton (2000)
3. Bäck, T.: Selective pressure in evolutionary algorithms: a characterization of selec-
tion mechanisms. In: First IEEE Conference on Evolutionary Computing, vol. 1,
pp. 57–62 (1994)
4. Kumar, R.: Blending roulette wheel selection and rank selection in genetic algo-
rithms. Int. J. Mach. Learn. Comput. 2(4), 365–370 (2012)
5. Zhong, J., Hu, X., Gu, M., et al.: Comparison of performance between different
selection strategies on simple genetic algorithms. In: Proceedings of the Inter-
national Conference on Computational Intelligence for Modelling, Control and
Automations (2005)
6. Baker, J.: Adaptive selection methods for genetic algorithms. In: Proceedings of
an International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, pp. 101–111 (1985)
7. Emmerich, M., Beume, N., Naujoks, B.: An EMO algorithm using the hypervolume
measure as selection criterion. In: EMO 2005. LNCS, vol. 3410, pp. 62–76 (2005)
8. Zitzler, E., Künzli, S.: Indicator-based selection in multiobjective search. In: Pro-
ceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from
Nature PPSN VIII, pp. 832–842 (2004)
9. Phan, D.H., Suzuki, J.: R2-Indicator based evolutionary algorithm for multiob-
jective optimization. In: Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2013), pp.
1836–1845 (2013)
10. Trautmann, H., Wagner, T., Brockhoff, D.: R2-EMOA: focused multiobjective
search using R2-indicator-based selection. In: Learning and Intelligent Optimiza-
tion, pp. 70–74 (2013)
11. Wagner, T., Trautmann, H., Brockhoff, D.: Reference articulation by means of
the R2 indicator. In: Evolutionary Multi-criterion Optimization (EMO 2013), vol.
7811, pp. 81–95 (2013)
12. Rosenthal, S., El-Sourani, N., Borschbach, M.: Introduction of a mutation specific
fast non-dominated sorting GA evolved for biochemical optimization. In: SEAL
2012. LNCS, vol. 7673, pp. 158–167 (2012)
13. Rosenthal, S., El-Sourani, N., Borschbach, M.: Impact of different recombination
methods in a mutation-specific MOEA for a biochemical application. In: Vanneschi,
L., Bush, W.S., Giacobini, M. (eds.) EvoBIO 2013. LNCS, vol. 7833, pp. 188–199
(2013)
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
1 lb. 3 oz.
The dimensions of a young male shot in autumn were as follows:
To end of tail 24 inches, to end of wings 24, to end of claws 29;
extent of wings 26; wing from flexure 10 1/2. Weight 1 lb. 1 1/2 oz.

In dissecting this bird, the extreme compression of the body strikes


one with surprise, its greatest breadth being scarcely an inch and a
half, although it is capable of being much dilated. The great length
and thickness of the neck are also remarkable; but these
circumstances are not peculiar to the present species, being equally
observed in many other Herons. On the roof of the mouth are three
longitudinal ridges; the aperture of the posterior nares is linear, with
an oblique flap on each side; the lower mandible is deeply concave,
its crura elastic and expansile; the tongue 2 1/12 inches long,
sagittate at the base with a single very slender papilla on each side,
trigonal, tapering, flattened above; the width of the mouth is 10
twelfths; but the pharynx is much wider. The œsophagus, a b c,
which is fifteen inches long, is very wide, having at its upper part,
when inflated, a diameter of 2 inches, but gradually contracting to 1/2
inch at its entrance into the thorax, and again expanding to 1 inch. Its
walls are extremely thin, and when contracted, its mucous coat
forms strongly marked longitudinal plaits. The proventriculus is very
wide, its glandules oblong and arranged in a belt 10 twelfths in
breadth. The stomach, e, is of moderate size, membranous, that is
with its muscular coat very thin, and not forming lateral muscles; its
tendinous spaces large and round, its inner coat smooth and soft; its
greatest diameter 1 inch. There is a small roundish pyloric lobe, as in
other Herons. Both lobes of the liver lie on the right side of the
proventriculus; one, i, being 1 inch 10 twelfths, the other, j, 1 inch 2
twelfths long; the gall-bladder large, 11 twelfths long. The intestine is
long and very slender, measuring 4 feet 7 inches, with a diameter of
only 2 twelfths at its upper part, and 1 1/2 twelfth at the lower, when
inflated; the rectum 4 inches long, and 4 twelfths in diameter, its
anterior extremity rounded, and having a minute papilliform
termination, only 1 twelfth long.

The trachea, which is 12 1/2 inches long, differs from that of ordinary
Herons in being much compressed, especially at its upper and lower
extremities; the middle part being less so. It is also proportionally
wider, and its rings are narrower. At the top its diameter is 5 twelfths,
at the middle 4 1/4 twelfths, towards the lower part 4 3/4 twelfths, at
the end 4 1/4 twelfths. The rings are osseous, in number 180; the five
lower divided in front and behind, and much arched, the last
measuring half an inch in a direct line between its extremities. The
bronchi are in consequence very broad at their commencement, but
gradually taper, and are composed of about 18 half rings. The
contractor muscles are inconspicuous, the sterno-tracheal slender;
and there is a single pair of inferior laryngeal, going to the first
bronchial ring. The aperture of the glottis is 8 twelfths long, without
any papillæ, but with a deep groove behind, and two thin-edged
flaps.
In the digestive organs of this bird, there is nothing remarkably
different from that of other Herons. The stomach contained remains
of fishes and large coleopterous insects. The examination of the
trachea, bronchi, and lungs, would not lead us to suppose that its cry
is of the curious character represented, although it certainly would
induce us to believe it different from that of ordinary Herons, which
have the trachea narrower, round, and with broader and more bony
rings.
Although in external appearance and habits it exhibits some affinity
to the Rails, its digestive organs have no resemblance to theirs.
An egg presented by Dr Brewer of Boston measures two inches in
length by one inch and a half, and is of a broadly oval shape, rather
pointed at the smaller end, and of a uniform dull olivaceous tint.
BREWER’S DUCK.

Anas Breweri.
PLATE CCCXXXVIII. Male.

The beautiful Duck from which I made the drawing copied on the
plate before you, was shot on Lake Barataria, in Louisiana, in
February 1822. It was in company with seven or eight Canvass-back
Ducks. No other individuals of the species were in sight at the time,
and all my efforts to procure another have been ineffectual.
You will see that this curious bird is named in the plate “Anas
glocitans,” the descriptions of that species having induced me to
consider it identical with this. But on comparing my drawing with
specimens in the Museum of the Zoological Society of London, I
found that the former represents a much larger bird, which, besides,
is differently coloured in some of its parts. The individual figured was
a male; but I have some doubts whether it had acquired the full
beauty of its mature plumage, and I considered it at the time as a
bird of the preceding season.
In form and proportions this bird is very nearly allied to the Mallard,
from which it differs in having the bill considerably narrower, in
wanting the recurved feathers of the tail, in having the feet dull
yellow in place of orange-red, the speculum more green and duller,
without the white bands of that bird, and in the large patch of light
red on the side of the head. It may possibly be an accidental variety,
or a hybrid between that bird and some other species, perhaps the
Gadwall, to which also it bears a great resemblance.
Bill nearly as long as the head, higher than broad at the base,
depressed and widened towards the end, rounded at the tip, the
lamellæ short and numerous, the unguis obovate, curved, the nasal
groove elliptical, the nostrils oblong.
Head of moderate size, oblong, compressed; neck rather long and
slender; body full, depressed. Feet short, stout, placed behind the
centre of the body; legs bare a little above the joint; tarsus short, a
little compressed, anteriorly with small scutella, laterally and behind
with reticulated angular scales. Hind toe very small, with a narrow
free membrane; third toe longest, fourth a little shorter; claws small,
arched, compressed, acute.
Plumage dense, soft, and elastic; of the hind head and neck short
and blended; of the other parts in general broad and rounded. Wings
of moderate length, acute; tail short, graduated.
Bill dull yellow, slightly tinged with green, dusky along the ridge. Iris
brown. Feet dull yellow, claws dusky, webs dull grey. Head and
upper part of the neck deep glossy green; but there is an elongated
patch of pale reddish-yellow, extending from the base of the bill over
the cheek to two inches and a quarter behind the eye, and meeting
that of the other side on the chin; the space immediately over and
behind the eye light dull purple. A narrow ring of pale yellowish-red
on the middle of the neck; the lower part of the neck dull brownish-
red, the feathers with a transverse band of dusky, and edged with
paler. The upper parts are dull greyish-brown, transversely undulated
with dusky; the smaller wing-coverts without undulations, but each
feather with a dusky bar behind another of light dull yellow; first row
of smaller coverts tipped with black; primaries and their coverts, light
brownish-grey; some of the outer secondaries similar, the next five or
six duck-green, the next light grey with a dusky patch toward the
end. The rump and upper tail-coverts black, as are the parts under
the tail, excepting two longitudinal white bands; tail-feathers light
brownish-grey, edged with whitish. All the rest of the lower parts are
greyish-white tinged with yellow, beautifully undulated with dusky
lines, on the middle of the breast these lines less numerous, and
each feather with a reddish-grey central streak.
Length to end of tail 23 inches, to end of claws 24; extent of wings
39; bill along the ridge 2 1/2, along the edge of lower mandible 2 1/8;
tarsus 1 1/8, middle toe 2, its claw 5/12; hind toe 3/8, its claw 1/8.
Weight 2 lb. 9 oz.
I have named this Duck after my friend Thomas M. Brewer of
Boston, as a mark of the estimation in which I hold him as an
accomplished ornithologist.
LITTLE GUILLEMOT.

Uria Alle, Temm.


PLATE CCCXXXIX. Male and Female.

This interesting little bird sometimes makes its appearance on our


eastern coasts during very cold and stormy weather. It does not
proceed much farther southward than the shores of New Jersey,
where it is of very rare occurrence. Now and then some are caught
in a state of exhaustion, as I have known to be the case especially in
Passamaquody Bay near Eastport in Maine, and in the vicinity of
Boston and Salem in Massachusetts.
In the course of my voyages across the Atlantic, I have often
observed the Little Guillemots in small groups, rising and flying to
short distances at the approach of the ship, or diving close to the
bow and reappearing a little way behind. Now with expanded wings
they would flutter and run as it were on the surface of the deep;
again, they would seem to be busily engaged in procuring food,
which consisted apparently of shrimps, other crustacea, and
particles of sea-weeds, all of which I have found in their stomach. I
have often thought how easy it would be to catch these tiny
wanderers of the ocean with nets thrown expertly from the bow of a
boat, for they manifest very little apprehension of danger from the
proximity of one, insomuch that I have seen several killed with the
oars. Those which were caught alive and placed on the deck, would
at first rest a few minutes with their bodies flat, then rise upright and
run about briskly, or attempt to fly off, which they sometimes
accomplished, when they happened to go in a straight course the
whole length of the ship so as to rise easily over the bulwarks. On
effecting their escape they would alight on the water and
immediately disappear.
During my visit to Labrador and Newfoundland I met with none of
these birds, although the cod-fishers assured me that they frequently
breed there. I am informed by Dr Townsend that this species is
found near the mouth of the Columbia River.

Alca alle, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 211.—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 795.
Little Auk, Alca alle, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. ix. p. 94, pl. 74, fig. 5.
Uria alle, Ch. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of United States, p. 425.
Little Guillemot, Uria alle, Richards. and Swains. Faun. Bor.-Amer. vol. ii.
p. 479.
Little Auk, or Sea Dove, Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 531.

Adult Male in summer. Plate CCCXXXIX.


Bill shorter than the head, stout, straightish, subpentagonal at the
base, compressed towards the end. Upper mandible with the dorsal
line convexo-declinate, the ridge convex, the sides sloping, the
edges sharp and overlapping, the tip rather obtuse. Nasal
depression short and broad; nostrils basal, oblong, with a horny
operculum. Lower mandible with the angle long and wide, the dorsal
outline very short, ascending, and straight, the sides convex, toward
the end ascending and flattened, the edges thin and inclinate, the tip
acute, with a sinus behind.
Body full and compact; neck short and thick; head large, ovate. Feet
short, rather stout; tibia bare for two-twelfths of an inch; tarsus very
short, compressed, covered anteriorly with oblique scutella, behind
with angular scales; hind toe wanting; anterior toes connected by
reticulated webs, the inner much shorter than the outer, which is
almost as long as the middle; the scutella numerous. Claws rather
small, moderately arched, compressed, rather acute, that of the
middle toe having its inner edge considerably expanded.
Plumage dense, blended, glossy. Wings of moderate length, narrow,
pointed; primaries pointed, the first longest, the rest rapidly
graduated; secondaries rounded. Tail very short, slightly rounded, of
twelve feathers.
Bill black. Iris dark hazel. Feet pale flesh-coloured; webs dusky;
claws black. Inside of mouth light yellow. The head, upper part of
neck, and all the upper surface, glossy bluish-black. A small spot on
the upper eyelid, another on the lower, several longitudinal streaks
on the scapulars, and a bar along the tips of the secondary quills,
white. The lower parts white; the feathers on the sides under the
wings have the outer webs white, the inner dusky; lower wing-
coverts blackish-grey.
Length to end of tail 7 1/8 inches, to end of claws 7 7/8, to end of
wings 6 7/8, to carpal joint 2 7/8; extent of wings 14 1/4; wing from
1/2
flexure 4 7/8; bill along the ridge 4 /8, along the edge of lower
mandible 1; tarsus 3/4; middle toe 1, its claw 1/4; outer toe 1, claw
1 1/2/ ; inner toe 5/8, its claw 1
1/2
/8. Weight 8 1/2 oz.
8

Adult Female, in winter. Plate CCCXXXIX. Fig. 2.


In winter, the throat and the lower parts of the cheeks are white; the
sides and fore part of the neck white, irregularly barred with blackish-
grey; the upper parts of a duller black than in summer.
There is nothing very remarkable in the anatomy of this bird, beyond
what is observed in the Auks and Guillemots. The ribs extend very
far back, and, having the dorsal and sternal portions much
elongated, are capable of aiding in giving much enlargement to the
body, of which the internal, or thoracic and abdominal cells are very
large. The subcutaneous cells are also largely developed, as in
many other diving and plunging birds.
The roof of the mouth is flat, broad, and covered with numerous
series of short horny papillæ directed backwards. The tongue is
large, fleshy, 10 twelfths of an inch long, emarginate at the base, flat
above, horny on the back. The heart is large, measuring 10 twelfths
in length, 8 1/2 twelfths in breadth. The right lobe of the liver is 1 3/12
inch in length, the left 1 1/12; the gall-bladder is elliptical. The kidneys
are very large.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.

The œsophagus, Fig. 1, a b c, is 3 inches 10 twelfths long, its walls


very thin, its inner or mucous coat thrown into longitudinal plates; its
diameter at the middle of the neck 5 eighths, diminishing to 4
twelfths as it enters the thorax. It then enlarges and forms the
proventriculus, c e, which has a diameter of 8 twelfths; the glandules
are cylindrical, very numerous, and arranged in a complete belt, half
an inch in breadth, in the usual manner, as seen in Fig. 2, b c. The
stomach, properly so called, Fig. 1, d g, is oblong, 11 twelfths in
length, 8 twelfths in breadth; its muscular coat moderately thick, and
disposed into two lateral muscles with large tendons; its epithelium,
Fig. 2, c d e, thick, hard, with numerous longitudinal and transverse
rugæ, and of a dark reddish colour. The duodenum, f g h, curves in
the usual manner at the distance of 1 1/4 inch, ascends toward the
upper surface of the right lobe of the liver for 1 inch and 10 twelfths,
then forms 4 loops, and from above the proventriculus, passes
directly backward. The length of the intestine, f g h i, is 16 1/2 inches,
its diameter 2 1/4 twelfths, and nearly uniform as far as the rectum,
which is 1 1/4 inch long, at first 3 twelfths in diameter, enlarged into
an ovate cloaca of great size, Fig. 3. b; the cœca a, a, 41 twelfths
long, cylindrical, 1/2 twelfth in diameter, obtuse.

The trachea, Fig. 1. k, l, is very wide, flattened, its rings unossified,


its length 2 9/12 inches, its breadth 3 twelfths, nearly uniform, but at
the lower part contracted to 2 twelfths. There are 75 rings, with 5
inferior blended rings, which are divided before and behind. The
bronchi, Fig. 1. m, m, are wide and rather elongated, with about 25
half rings. The contractor muscles are extremely thin, the sterno-
tracheal slender; there is a pair of inferior laryngeal attached to the
first bronchial rings.
The above account of the digestive organs of this bird will be seen to
be very different from that given by Sir Everard Home, who has, in all
probability, mistaken the species. “There is still,” says he, “one more
variety in the structure of the digestive organs of birds, that live
principally upon animal food, which has come under my observation;
and with an account of which I shall conclude the present lecture.
This bird is the Alea Alle of Linnæus, the Little Auk. The termination
of the œsophagus is only known by the ending of the cuticular lining,
and the beginning of the gastric glands; for the cardiac cavity is one
continued tube, extending considerably lower down in the cavity of
the abdomen, and gradually enlarging at the lower part; it then turns
up to the right side, about half-way to the origin of the cavity, and is
there connected to a small gizzard, the digastric muscle of which is
strong, and a small portion of the internal surface on each side has a
hard cuticular covering. The gastric glands at the upper part are
placed in four distinct longitudinal rows, becoming more and more
numerous towards the lower part of the cavity, and extend to the
bottom, where it turns up. The extent of the cavity in which the
gastric glands are placed, exceeds any thing met with in the other
birds that live upon fish; and the turn which the cavity takes almost
directly upwards, and the gizzard being at the highest part instead of
the lowest, are peculiarities, as far as I am acquainted, not met with
in any other birds of prey. This mechanism, which will be better
understood by examining the engraving, makes the obstacles to the
food in its passage to the intestines unusually great; and enables the
bird to digest both fishes and sea-worms with crustaceous shells. It
appears to be given for the purpose of economizing the food in two
different ways,—one retaining it longer in the cardiac cavity, the other
supplying that cavity with a greater quantity of gastric liquor than in
other birds. This opinion is further confirmed by the habits of life of
this particular species of bird, which spends a portion of the year in
the frozen regions of Nova Zembla, where the supplies of
nourishment must be both scanty and precarious.”
With respect to this statement and the reasonings founded upon it, it
will be seen from the description and accompanying figures above,
taken directly from nature, and without the least reference to the
dissections or theories of any person, that the œsophagus and
stomach of the Little Auk or Guillemot, Alca Alle of Linnæus, are very
similar to those of other Auks, Guillemots, Divers, and fish-eating
birds in general. The cardiac or proventricular cavity forms no curve;
and the gizzard with which it is connected, is not small, nor has it
merely a small portion of the internal surface on each side covered
with a hard cuticular lining; for the epithelium covers its whole
surface, and is of considerable extent. The gastric glands are not at
all disposed as represented by Sir E. Home, but are aggregated in
the form of a compact belt half an inch broad, Fig. 2. b, c. As to the
ingenious reasoning by which the economy of the Little Auk is so
satisfactorily accounted for, it is enough here to say, that having no
foundation, it is of less than no value. But were there such a
curvature as that in question, there could be no propriety in
supposing that it presented any great obstacle to the passage of the
food, or retained it longer than usual. Nor is the statement as to
scanty and precarious supply of nourishment correct; for the Arctic
Seas, to which this bird resorts in vast numbers, are represented by
navigators as abounding in small crustacea, on which chiefly the
Little Auk feeds, and that to such an extent as to colour the water for
leagues. Besides, if there were such a scarcity of food in Nova
Zembla, why should the birds go there? In short, the whole
statement is incorrect; and the many compilers, from Dr Carus to
the most recent, who have pressed it into their service, may, in their
future editions, with propriety leave it out, and supply its place with
something equally ingenious.
The egg of this species measures one inch and nearly five-eighths in
length, one inch and an eighth in its greatest breadth. It is
remarkably large for the size of the bird, and of a dull uniform pale
greenish-blue.
LEAST PETREL.

Thalassidroma pelagica, Leach.


PLATE CCCXL. Male and Female.

In August 1830, being becalmed on the banks of Newfoundland, I


obtained several individuals of this species from a flock composed
chiefly of Thalassidroma Leachii, and Th. Wilsoni. Their smaller size,
and the more rapid motions of their wings, rendered them quite
conspicuous, and suggested the idea of their being a new species,
although a closer inspection shewed them to belong to the present.
In their general manners, while feeding, floating on the water, or
rambling round the boat in which I went in pursuit of them, they did
not differ materially from the other species. Their flight, however, was
more hurried and irregular, and none of them uttered any note or cry,
even when wounded and captured. I have been assured that this
bird breeds on the sandy beaches of Sable Island on the coast of
Nova Scotia; but not having had an opportunity of visiting it, or any
other breeding place, I here present you with Mr Hewitson’s
observations on this subject.
“In an excursion,” says this amiable and enterprising naturalist,
“through the Shetland Islands during the present summer, in search
of rarities for this work (the British Oology), I had the very great
satisfaction of seeing and taking many of these most interesting
birds alive; they breed in great numbers on several of the islands,
principally upon Foula, the north of Hunst, and upon Papa, and
Oxna, two small islands in the Bay of Scalloway; the last of these I
visited on the 31st of May in hopes of procuring their eggs (it being
the season in which most of the sea-birds begin to lay); but in this I
was disappointed; the fishermen who knew them well by the name of
Swallows, assured me that my search would be quite useless, that
they had not yet “come up from sea,” and so it proved. Sixteen days
after this (June 16th and three following days) I was at Foula, but
was alike unsuccessful, the birds had arrived at their breeding
places, but had not yet begun laying their eggs; numbers of them
were sitting in their holes, and were easily caught; one man brought
me about a dozen tied up in an old stocking, two of which I kept alive
in my room for nearly three days, and derived very great pleasure
from their company; during the day they were mostly inactive, and
after pacing about the floor for a short time, poking their head into
every hole, they hid themselves between the feet of the table and the
wall; I could not prevail upon them to eat any thing, though I tried to
tempt them with fish and oil; their manner of walking is very light and
pleasing, and differing from that of every other bird which I have
seen; they carry their body so far forward and so nearly horizontal,
as to give them the appearance of being out of equilibrium. In the
evening, toward sun-set, they left their hiding places, and for hours
afterwards, never ceased in their endeavours to regain their liberty;
flying round and round the room, or fluttering against the windows;
when flying, their length of wing, and white above the tail, gives them
a good deal the appearance of our House-Martin. I went to bed and
watched them in their noiseless flight long ere I fell asleep, but in the
morning they had disappeared; one had fortunately made its escape
through a broken pane in the window which a towel should have
occupied, the other had fallen into a basin, full of the yolks of eggs
which I had been blowing, and was drowned. I regretted much the
fate of a being so interesting, by its very remarkable, wandering,
solitary, and harmless life. Before leaving Shetland I again visited the
island of Oxna, and though so late as the 30th of June, they were
only just beginning to lay their eggs. In Foula they breed in the holes
in the cliff, at a great height above the sea; but here under stones
which form the beach, at a depth of three or four feet, or more,
according to that of the stones; as they go down to the earth,
beneath them, on which to lay their eggs. In walking over the
surface, I could hear them, very distinctly, singing in a sort of
warbling chatter, a good deal like swallows when fluttering above our
chimneys, but harsher; and in this way, by listening attentively, was
guided to their retreat, and, after throwing out stones as large as I
could lift on all sides of me, seldom failed in capturing two or three
seated on their nests, either under the lowest stone or between two
of them. The nests, though of much the same materials as the
ground on which they were placed, seem to have been made with
care; they were of small bits of stalks of plants, and pieces of hard
dry earth. Like the rest of the genus, the Stormy Petrel lays
invariably one egg only. During the day-time they remain within their
holes; and though the fishermen are constantly passing over their
heads (the beach under which they breed being appropriated for the
drying of fish), they are then seldom heard, but toward night become
extremely querulous; and when most other birds are gone to rest,
issue forth in great numbers, spreading themselves far over the
surface of the sea. The fishermen then meet them very numerously;
and though they have not previously seen one, are sure to be
surrounded by them upon throwing pieces of fish overboard.”
The egg measures one inch and an eighth in length, six and a half
eighths in breadth, is nearly equally rounded at both ends, rather
thick-shelled, and pure white, but generally with numerous minute
dots of dull red at the larger end, sometimes forming a circular band.

Procellaria pelagica, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 212.—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol.
ii. p. 826.
Stormy Petrel, Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 327.
Adult Male. Plate CCCXL. Fig. 1.
Bill shorter than the head, slender, compressed towards the end,
straight, with the tips curved. Upper mandible with the nostrils
forming a tube at the base, beyond which, for a short space, the
dorsal line is nearly straight, then suddenly decurved, the sides
declinate, the edges sharp, the tip compressed and acute. Lower
mandible with the angle rather long, narrow, and pointed, the dorsal
line beyond it very slightly concave and decurved, the sides erect,
the edges sharp, the tip slightly decurved.
Head of moderate size, roundish, anteriorly narrowed. Neck short.
Body rather slender. Feet of moderate length, very slender; tibia bare
at its lower part; tarsus very slender, reticulate; hind toe extremely
minute, being reduced, as it were, to a slightly decurved claw;
anterior toes rather long and extremely slender, obscurely scutellate
above, connected by striated webs with concave margins. Claws
slender, arched, compressed, acute.
Plumage very soft, blended, the feathers distinct only on the wings,
which are very long and narrow; primary quills tapering, but rounded,
the second longest, the first three and a half twelfths, the third a
twelfth and a half shorter; secondaries short, the outer incurved,
obliquely rounded. Tail rather long, broad, slightly rounded, of twelve
broad rounded feathers.
Bill and feet black. Iris dark brown. The general colour of the upper
parts is greyish-black, with a tinge of brown, and moderately
glossed; the lower parts of a sooty brown; the secondary coverts
margined externally with dull greyish-white; the feathers of the rump
and the upper tail-coverts white, with the shafts black, the tail-coverts
broadly tipped with black.
Length to end of tail 5 3/4 inches, to end of claws 5 1/4, to end of
wings 6 1/4; extent of wings 13 1/2; wing from flexure 5 1/8; tail 2 1/8;
bill above (4 1/2/8, along the edge of lower mandible 5/8; tarsus 7/8;
middle toe and claw 7/8; outer toe nearly equal; inner toe and claw
5 1/2/8. Weight 4 1/2 drachms; the individual poor.
Adult Female. Plate CCCXL. Fig. 2.
The Female resembles the male.

Fig. 1.

A male bird, from Nova Scotia, examined. The upper mandible


internally has a longitudinal median ridge; the palate is convex, with
two lateral ridges. The tongue is 5 1/2 twelfths long, emarginate and
serrulate at the base, very much flattened, tapering to a horny point.
The heart, Fig. 1, a, is of a very elongated narrow conical form, 2
twelfths in length, 4 twelfths in breadth at the base. The lobes of the
liver, b, c, are equal, 6 1/2 twelfths long. The œsophagus, d, e, is 1
inch 10 twelfths long, of a uniform diameter of 2 1/2 twelfths; behind
the liver, it enters as it were a large sac, f, g, h, 9 twelfths of an inch
long, which gradually expands to a diameter of 6 twelfths, forming a
broad rounded fundus g, then curves forwards on the right side, and
at h terminates in a small gizzard, about 3 twelfths long, and nearly
of the same breadth, from the left side of which comes off the
intestine. The latter passes forward, curving to the right, behind and
in contact with the posterior surfaces of the liver, then forms the
duodenal fold, h, j, k, in the usual manner. The intestine, on arriving
at the right lobe of the liver, at k, receives the biliary duct, curves
backward beneath the kidneys, and forms several convolutions,
which terminate above the proventriculus. It then becomes much
narrower, and passes directly backward, in a straight course to the
rectum, which is only 4 twelfths of an inch long. The cœca are
oblong, 1 1/4 twelfth in length, and 1/2 twelfth in diameter. The
intestine is 8 1/2 inches long, its diameter diminishing gradually from
2 twelfths to 3/4 of a twelfth.

Fig. 2.

In Fig 2. are represented:—the lower part of the œsophagus, d, e, f;


the proventricular sac, f, g, h; the very small gizzard, h; the duodenal
fold of the intestine, i, j, k. Here the parts are viewed from the left
side.

You might also like