222 MR. R. OWEN ON THE ANATOMY 
wild animal, I was prepared to expect that it would offer some well-marked and 
perhaps anomalous modifications in its structure; but the modifications are in fact of 
a very simple nature. (Pl. XLI.) The muscles of the tongue are the same in number, 
position, and attachments as in other Ruminants ; the principal difference obtains in 
the greater extent of the organ, anterior to the insertion of the genio-glossus; and as 
this free and active part consists entirely of a firm muscular tissue, invested by a thin, 
but dense and very closely adhering integument, there is a corresponding increase in 
the bulk of the linguales muscles as compared with those muscles of the tongue which 
have attachments to the bone; of these latter the stylo-glossi, (fig. 2. a. a.) which are 
the principal retractors of the free anterior part of the tongue, are relatively stronger 
than in other Ruminants ; they arise by a thin but strong tendon from near the lower 
extremity of the styloid bone, and run forwards below the lateral margins of the tongue, 
to which they are braced by a thin sheet of fibres (fig. 2. f. f.) descending obliquely for- 
wards from the sides of the linguales to the upper margin of the stylo-glossi. The lin- 
gualis inferior is a broad thin sheet of muscular fibres (fig. 2. c. c.), which comes off from 
the condensed cellular tissue at the under part of the root of the tongue, and runs for- 
ward parallel with the fibres of the stylo-glossi, with which it becomes blended anterior 
to the hyo-glossi (fig. 2. b. b.); these accessory fibres cross the inner surface of the hyo- 
glossus muscle, which is thus inclosed between the two layers of longitudinal retractors. 
Sir Everard Home, in his observations on the anatomy of the Giraffe which died in the 
menagerie of His Majesty King George IV., near Windsor, conceived that the extension 
and change of size of the tongue was effected chiefly by vascular action—by “‘ its con- 
taining a reservoir, out of the course of the circulation, which can be filled with blood 
at the will of the animal, so as to give it rigidity, and enable it to extend itself for the 
performance of the different actions in which it is employed with the smallest possible 
degree of muscular exertion,” and that the increase and diminution of size arose from 
the blood vessels being at one time loaded with blood and at another empty. The 
movements of the Cameleon’s tongue have been explained on a similar theory of vas- 
cular or erectile action. 
The arteries and veins of the tongue of one of the Giraffes dissected by me, were 
both successfully injected, and the non-existence of either a reservoir of blood or a vas- 
cular erectile tissue was clearly proved. The lingual artery (fig. 2. 7.) at the base of the 
tongue, sends off a large branch which runs upwards on the outside of the posterior part 
of the genio-glossi muscles (fig, 2. d.), and is principally distributed to the large fossulate 
mucous papille and glandular surface on the raised posterior margin of the tongue: 
the main artery is then continued forwards along the inner surface of the stylo- 
glossi muscles, giving off branches here and there to the muscular substance of the 
tongue, and the only modification which it offers worthy of note is the existence of 
numerous and large anastomotic communications with the lingual artery of the opposite 
side. The first of these intercommunicating branches, which was as large as a crow 
