the Wombat and Tasmanian Devil. 155 



five dorsal spines, from all the cervical, and from the occipital 

 bone below the last ; it is inserted into the entire length of the 

 vertebral margin of the scapula. In Sarcophilus its attach- 

 ments are simihar, but it is distinctly divisible into a rhom- 

 boideus occipitalis (Murie and Mivart, occipito-scapularis of 

 Wood) and a proper rhomboid made up of the fused major 

 and minor. In both it is a thick muscle. It is faintly divisible 

 in the Opossum (Meckel says, not) and Phalanger as in the 

 native Devil, but less in the Macroptis giganteus and Bennett's 

 Kangaroo : in these the muscle only extends to the three upper 

 dorsal spines ; in the Opossum and Phalanger, on the other 

 hand, it extends down to the fifth and sixth dorsal spines. 



Serratus posticus, in the Wombat, is a large muscle arising 

 tendinous from the whole series of dorsal spines except the 

 last, and is inserted fleshy into all the ribs, forming a con- 

 tinuous sheet, as in the Pig. In Sarcophilus the serratus 

 passes from the upper half of the dorsal spines, and is inserted 

 into the upper eight ribs. 



Serratus magnus, in the Wombat, is divided into two parts, 

 the upper of which includes the levator scapula ; this portion 

 is very \v'eak, and its attachments are, as usual, from the lower 

 four cervical vertebrae and from the upper three ribs to the 

 upper part of the scapular spine. The lower part arises from 

 all the ribs from the fifth to the eleventh inclusive (there are 

 fifteen ribs, as described by Waterhouse, ' Marsupialia,' p. 280), 

 and is inserted into the inferior angle of the scapula, at the 

 subscapular side, and into a small part of the axillary margin. 

 In Sarcophilus its attachments are similar, and the levator 

 scapula3 is inseparable. In Macropus giganteus and the Wal- 

 laby it arises from the transverse processes and ribs from the 

 third cervical to the sixth dorsal vertebrge continuously. In 

 the Opossum the levator scapulae arises from the transverse 

 processes of all the cervical vertebrae but the atlas, and is 

 nearly inseparable from the serratus proper, which extends 

 from the first to the eighth ribs (Meckel describes them as 

 separate) ; and the muscles are similarly arranged in Pha- 

 langista. 



The splenius in the Wombat is a continuous sheet, and not 

 easily divided into the two parts, capitis and colli ; it arises 

 from the spines of the vertebrae forming the upper fifth of the 

 dorsal region and from all those of the cervical vertebrae below 

 the axis ; the fibres are inserted into the occipital bone and 

 into the posterior aspect of the upper cervical transverse 

 processes. In Sai-cophilus the splenius passes from the four 

 upper dorsal and six lower cervical spines to the transverse 

 process of the atlas and the occipital bone. 



11* 



