H4 Animal Morphology. 



mine whether in running, flying, swimming, or walking 

 motion should be directed into its greatest or slowest form 

 of speed flight always requiring gravity in the greatest 

 excess anteriorly to the axis of muscular motion, for which 

 purpose the tail acts as a sure and ready rudder to give the 

 balance of direction in relation to gravity. 



As for mammalia, the seventh cervical is invariably lower 

 in the body of the vertebra than the sacro-lumbar articula- 

 tion, save, perhaps, in the giraffe and elephant, and may be 

 the Baska horse (a beast of burden employed in Central 

 Tartary), when moving on all fours. 



But wherever the body of seventh cervical is higher than the 

 sacro-lumbar articulation, there we have no power to jump 

 in that animal, and it always moves either walking or 

 running in the equilateral form that is, one side moving 

 backwards and the other moving forward together as equi- 

 lateral halves, and never alternately, as in pigs, rats, asses, 

 horses, and antelopes, etc., etc. 



Hence all mammalia move towards the point of greatest 

 gravity, which is towards the body of the seventh cervical 

 vertebra, at which point gravity tends both from the sacro- 

 lumbar region and from the head and neck. The trunk of 

 the elephant, and the long neck and head of the giraffe, and 

 the heavy head of the Baska horse, all tend to compensate 

 for the elevation of the body at the seventh cervical 

 vertebra. 



Of course, in these latter animals, the long withers or 

 spinous processes stand for nothing. Elevation must only 

 be taken from the body of the vertebras, and not from the 

 spinous processes. 



The outcomings of this arrangement of muscle and bone, 

 in a complex machine, is to enable force in muscles both to 

 meet resistance in fluids, either of air or water, and also to 

 enable the bony framework to maintain its balance during 



