CHAPTER VII. THE SKELETON. 



1. Method of Study. We are now in a position to 

 study the rabbit's skeleton. We strongly recommend the 

 student to do this with the actual bones at hand they may 

 be cleared very easily in a well-boiled rabbit. This recom- 

 mendation may appear superfluous to some readers, but, as 

 a matter of fact, the marked proclivity of the average 

 schoolmaster for mere book-work has put such a stamp on 

 study, that, in nine cases out of ten, a student, unless he is 

 expressly instructed to the contrary, will go to the tortuous, 

 and possibly inexact, descriptions of a book for a knowledge 

 of things that lie at his very finger-tips. We have not 

 written this chapter to give a complete knowledge of the 

 skeleton, but simply as an aid in the actual examination of 

 the bones. 



2. Physiology and Morphology of Skeleton. From 

 the physiological point of view, the skeleton serves a double 

 purpose it forms the firm but movably-jointed framework 

 without which the precision of motion, which is so necessary 

 in an animal living under the rabbit's conditions, would be 

 impossible ; and it affords a protective case for many of the 

 delicate internal organs. 



From the morphological point of view perhaps its most 

 striking feature is the repetition of similar parts which it 

 shows. We are not now referring either to the histological 

 repetition of cells and tissues, nor to the more general repe- 

 tition of such organs as veins and arteries all over the body, 

 but to a repetition of a much more definite kind. In the 

 first place the skeleton shows bilajjiera^ qymii^gtry more 

 perfectly than any other system intne rabbit ; and in the 

 second place it shows that repetition in a longitudinal 

 series which is technically called metamerism or metameric 

 segmentation. This is best shown by the vertebral column, 

 which consists of a string of separate bones, which are all 



ZOOL. 66 5 



