PREFACE. 



There has not yet been published, so far as the writer 

 is aware, any work devoted to a complete account of the 

 muscles of any single species of the Class Aves, — a work 

 fully and practically illustrated, and one that would 

 prove itself to be of service to those either engaged in 

 the general study of the morphology of vertebrates, or 

 to those special students who may be investigating the 

 myology of birds. At the present time, — when the 

 study of the structure of animals is becoming far more 

 general, as one of the most efficient aids to observation 

 and mental training, than it was so considered a number 

 of years ago, — books of the class which your author 

 has here endeavoured to produce come to be very 

 useful. Birds stand among the most easily procurable 

 subjects for the use of the demonstrator at the laboratory, 

 or for the student to employ in his own researches at 

 home as illustrative of certain parts of his course in 

 biology. And it was to fill this so important a gap, as 

 the lack of a suitable volume devoted to the muscular 

 system of birds, that the writer undertook an exhaustive 

 study of the muscles of the Raven [Corviis corax 



