185 



PECULIARITY IN THE FEMUR OP A FOX. 



BY J. B. DAVIES, KSQ. 



On Sunday, the 13th. March last, some men, who might certainly have 

 been better employed, succeeded in capturing one of these much-persecuted 

 animals, a Fox, having first fractured its left femur. In this state he was 

 confined in a stable, where the fancy young gentlemen of Ripon enjoyed the 

 barbarous sport of drawing, by means of Terriers and other Dogs almost as 

 cruel as themselves, until, on the Sunday following, mortification put an end 

 to his sufi^erings: in the course of the next day he fell into my hands. On 

 dissection, I found a peculiarity in the formation of the globular head of the 

 right femur and cotyloid cavity; and judging from my own observation that 

 such a malformation is not often observed, I presume to offer it to the readers 

 of "The Naturalist." 



It is a fact known to every tyro in anatomy that the upper end of the 



femur, or thigh bone, is provided with a globular head, which fits into a cup- 

 shaped cavity known as the acetabulum, or cotyloid cavity. This is shown in 

 Figs. 1 and 2, which represent respectively portions of the left femur and left 

 side of the pelvis. The anomaly I would call atten- \ 

 tion to consists of an enlargement of the globular 

 head of the femur. Fig. 3, which had assumed an 

 oblong form, somewhat resembling a French bean in 

 shape, and greatly increased in size. Of course it is 

 impossible that the cotyloid cavity should contain such a 

 mass, and we find that, together with its elevated margin, 

 it has become all but obliterated, and instead of it, a 

 flattened surface is presented to the femur. Fig. 4. 

 It is certain that with a limb so constituted the poor 

 creature could not have the same certainty of action 

 as with the properly-formed joint, and this may in 

 some measure account for the strange capture of one 

 of the swiftest of the race— a Greyhound Fo*x. I do 



VOL. III. 



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