HEPORT ON THE SPHENISCID.E. 129 



Action. — The muscle extends and adducts the toe towards the middle line of the foot. 



Nerve supply. — A branch from the anterior tibial nerve. 



Remarks. — Meckel (vol. vi. p. Ill) remarks upon the peculiarity of the insertion of this 

 muscle into the inner side of the base of the first phalanx. As a rule, in other birds it 

 is inserted into the outer side of the base of that phalanx. In the latter, therefore, it is 

 an abductor, whilst in all the Penguins it is an adductor of the toe towards the middle 

 line of the foot. 



15. Abductor digit i externi. 



Addudeurs des doigts (one of), Vicq d'Azyr, 1774, p. 517, Xo. 2. 

 Der Abzieher der dusseren Zehe, Wiedemann, p. 106. 

 Der Abzieher der dussem Zehe, Tiedemann, p. 346, No. 10. 

 Plantatre du quatrihme doigt, Gervais and Alix, p. 38. 



Attachments. — This muscle arises from the upper half of the plantar surface of the 

 fourth metatarsal bone. It passes downwards, and is inserted into the outer side of the 

 base of the first phalanx of the fourth or outer toe. 



Action. — This muscle flexes and abducts the outer toe from the middle line of the 

 foot. 



Nerve supply {'I) 



Comparative Remarks. 



MM. Gervais and Alix sum up the myological characteristics of the leg of the Penguin 

 as follows : ^ — 



" The arrangement " (of the muscles of the leg) " is less characteristic " (than is that 

 of the wing). " We perceive in it that which characterises the palmipedes in general. 



" We note the size and strength of the ambiens muscle coincident with the atrophy of 

 the pectineal apophyses, as also the depth of the patellar groove in which the tendon of 

 the ambiens glides ; the strength of the sartorius which takes an attachment to the dorsal 

 vertebras ; the strength of the tensor fasciae latse (rectus femoris), developed to a similar 

 extent in the Grebes, which, however, do not possess the ambiens ; the feeble development 

 of the gluteus maximus (tensor fasciae femoris), which constitutes a difi"erence between 

 Eudyptes and Grebe, in the latter of which of all birds the gluteus maximus (tensor 

 fasciae femoris) attains the largest dimensions, at the same time that it approximates 

 Eudyptes to the Swan and to the raptorial birds ; the great size of the quadratus femoris 

 (obturator externus) ; the presence of two distinct heads of the fcmoro-coccygeus (cruro- 

 coccygeus and adductor longus), which separates Eudyptes from the Grebe, in the 



^ In translating the following summary, I have inserted in brackets the names used in the text to designate the 

 various muscles referred to by MM. Gervais and Alix. 



(ZOOL. CHALL. EXP. —PART XVIII. — 1883.) S 17 



