PREFACE. vii 



system, it is to be hoped that the writer's plan will be 

 found to be a convenient and helpful one : it was his 

 chief aim throughout, next to accuracy and clearness of 

 description, to make it so. 



In choosing the Raven for our subject, it was done in 

 view of the fact that it is a large representative of a 

 very numerous and cosmopolitan family of birds, the 

 Corvidce ; so that, in almost any part of the world, a 

 variety of birds become available whose muscular sys- 

 tems can be studied by the aid of the present volume. 

 It is hardly necessary to add that Crows of all descrip- 

 tions, Jays, Orioles, and a host of others, all fall within 

 this category. It has its advantage, too, for the teacher 

 and the student at the biological laboratory ; for the 

 former can use as his subject the larger and more advan- 

 tageous specimens, as the Ravens or Crows, while the 

 latter can confirm the instructions of the former, at 

 home, upon any of the smaller varieties of the Corvidce, 

 such as the Jays or Rooks. 



As his investigations in the myology of vertebrates 

 progress, three lines for improvement, in so far as our 

 knowledge of the muscular system of birds is concerned, 

 will force themselves upon the student. In the first 

 place, we still remain very ignorant of the details of this 

 system in a great many important types of birds ; 

 secondly, an ever-pressing demand is evident, to fix the 

 homologies of muscles in the Vertebrata, and conse- 

 quently to bring so far-reaching a knowledge of this 

 department of research to our assistance as to be enabled 

 to give the same name to the same muscles, accurately, 

 throughout the vertebrate series ; finally, a simple, 



