vi PREFACE. 



sinuatus) ; and the work here placed before the reader, 

 with its eighty and odd figures, is the outcome of those 

 investigations. 



With regard to my nomenclature of the muscles I 

 have here described and figured, I have been guided by 

 such brief chapters as are devoted to this subject and 

 which appear in the published scientific memoirs of 

 such excellent authorities as Owen, Carus, A. Milne- 

 Edwards, Huxley, Garrod, Forbes, Selenka, Coues, Fttr- 

 bringer, and Gadow ; but when I have been in doubt, 

 and these authorities failed to assist me, I have en- 

 deavoured to bestow upon the muscle a suitable name. 

 The student must bear in mind, too, that many other 

 birds possess muscles which are not to be found in the 

 Eaven ; in some special cases I have alluded to these. 

 On the other hand, the muscles, even in the represen- 

 tatives of the same species, may vary in certain in- 

 dividuals to some extent. This fact has long been 

 appreciated by anthropotomists. 



Gadow's work upon the muscles of birds, which 

 appeared in Bronn's Thier-Rcichs, is an admirable con- 

 tribution to the general subject ; but it is by no means 

 a work that meets the general want, and possesses the 

 disadvantages of being but meagrely illustrated, and of 

 having appeared in German, in a work of limited cir- 

 culation. Notwithstanding this, I am quite sure my 

 reader will feel grateful for my having incorporated 

 Gadow's synonymy in footnotes in the present volume, 

 as they cannot fail to be anything but the most useful 

 adjunct to a guide to avian myology. 



In arranging and grouping the elements of this 



