186 Dr. J, Murie on the Horns^ Viscera^ 



shoulder sidewards and in front, with an insertion into the 

 humerus and sternumwards. I may add, however, that supe- 

 riorly, where moderately tendinous, its short bifurcation em- 

 braces a portion of the intertransversales cervicis ; lower down, 

 at the root of the neck, it is thick, massive, and fleshy, again 

 inferiorly thinning into glistening aponeurosis stretching as a 

 wide semilune in the axillary region, and, along with the pec- 

 toralis major, being finally inserted into the anterior middle 

 line of the humeral shaft, nearly its whole length. In the 

 long-necked alpaca I have found this muscle well nigh iden- 

 tical, excepting less volume over the shoulder ; but in sheep 

 and oxen it is duplex and proceeds to the skull. 



My dissections confirm the Toulouse Professors' assertion of 

 there being but a single trapezius, as in cattle and the Canie- 

 lida3. Owen describes a double portion, the first of which 

 undoubtedly applies to the cephalo-humeral — a view which of 

 late* he seems inclined to admit. In the giraffe the trapezius 

 barely passes into the neck, and is even still shorter in Auchema 

 2)acos. These two forms therefore differ from the generality 

 of heavy-necked Kuminantia and Perissodactyla, where it 

 stretches forwards very considerably. 



Between our English anatomist and the two French savants 

 there is a further difference of opinion concerning the presence 

 of a rhomboideus. The latter deny its existence. My own 

 dissection of several specimens substantiates Owen's state- 

 ment ; as he observes, it is remarkable for its shortness. In one 

 old fleshy male I made a memorandum of its being much 

 stronger than as figured in PI. VII. In this case the spinal 

 origin reached from about the seventh cervical to the third 

 dorsal vertebra, or equivalent to 8 inches measured along the 

 ligamentum nuchas. 



The elevation of the shoulders causes the fibres of the latis- 

 simus dorsi to be more obliquely set upwards than in ordinary 

 ruminants, the diagonal line of force corresponding. It forms 

 serrations with the four hindmost ribs, and goes to the humerus 

 along with the teres major. The only peculiarity worth men- 

 tioning in the sacro-lumbalis and longissimus dorsi is that the 

 latter massive muscle appears double, the upper half being- 

 tendinous. The spinalis dorsi has unusual width, on account 

 of the length of the dorsal spines ; the ligamentum nuchas 

 partially overlaps it for six or seven of the dorsal vertebrge. 

 As the semispinalis reaches the neck (s. colli), it becomes 

 much reduced in bulk, corresponding therefore to the nuchal 

 slenderness — its highest tendon, as in other mammals, being 



* Anat. and Physiol, of Vertebrates, vol. iii. p. 42. 



