MUSCLES OF THE TRUNK. 201 



tendon common to it and the fasciculus of the opposite side, and which 

 receives the most superficial fibres of the three or four preceding fasciculi. 



Relations. Above and behind, with the vertebrae which it covers, as 

 well as their intervertebral discs; below and in front, with the trachea 

 and oasophagus, and the vessels and nerves accompanying these two tubes ; 

 on the sides, with the great anterior straight and the scalenus muscles in its 

 cervical portion, and in its intrathoracic portion, with the pleurae, and 

 important vessels and nerves. 



Action. It flexes the whole neck, and the cervical vertebrae on one 

 another. 



DIFFERENTIAL CHABACTEBS OF THE MUSCLES OF THE CERVICAL REGION IN OTHEB THAN 



80LIPED ANIMALS. 



A. Superior Cervical Region. 



1. RUMINANTS. In the Ox, the angularis arises by six digitations from all the cervical 

 vertebrae except the first ; the splenius is little developed, and is not attached to eithef 

 the third or fourth cervical vertebra. 



2. PIG. The muscles of the superior cervical region in this animal are generally 

 very developed. The rhomboideus is divided into two fleshy bodies, one of which proceeds 

 to the occipital protuberance, and the other to the rudimentary cervical ligament and 

 the first dorsal vertebrae. The angularis is attached, as in Ruminants, to the six cervical 

 vertebrae ; sometimes it even shows a digitation that descends to the atlas. The splenius 

 only terminates anteriorly by three fleshy bodies; but they are voluminous, and are 

 inserted, one into the atlas, another into the mastoid crest, and the third into the occipital 

 protuberance. In the great complexus, the two portions are completely separated from 

 each other, except at their upper extremity, by the interspace lodging the superior 

 cervical artery. The aponeurosis attaching the muscle to the spinous processes of the 

 first dorsal vertebrae is not confounded with that of the splenius or the small anterior 

 serrated respiratory muscle. The atloidean fleshy body of the small com/plexus is scarcely 

 distinct from the superior branch of the ilio-spinalis and the intertransvensales. Lastly, 

 it is difficult to distinguish the small posterior straight muscle from the deep fasciculus 

 of the great straight muscle. 



3. CARNIVORA. In these animals the muscles of the superior cervical region are 

 nearly all voluminous, as in the Pig. The rhomboideus is bifid at its origin, and its 

 anterior branch arises from the mastoid crest. The angularis is also attached to the last 

 six cervical vertebrae. Very thick and broad, the splenius only passes to the atlas and 

 mastoid crest. The oblique and straight posterior muscles of the head are also remarkably 

 thick. 



B. Inferior Cervical or Trachelian Region* 



1. RUMINANTS In the Ox and Sheep, the disposition of the cuticularis colli offers a, 

 very considerable difference from that observed in Solipeds. The fleshy portion is 

 absent, or appears to be absent, in the cervical region ; the anterior muscles of the neck 

 are only covered by a thin fascia developed on the sides of the neck. When this 

 fascia reaches the face, it becomes continuous with the fleshy fibres; a fasciculus of 

 these fibres comports itself as in the Horse, and goes to join the alveo-labialis ; another 

 is intercrossed in the maxillary space .by the analogous fasciculus of the opposite 

 side. 



The cervical cuticularis muscle of the Ox is also distinguished by an extremely 

 remarkable peculiarity which it is necessary to allude to here : The fleshy cervical band, 

 altogether absent in the Sheep, is not so in the Ox ; we have found it forming, beneath 

 the above-mentioned apoueurotic fascia, the long, thick strip which has been described 

 by veterinary anatomists as the analogue of the sterno-maxillaris in the Horse. This 

 strip is attached, like the muscular band which represents it in Solipeds, to the anterior 

 point of the sternum. But its fibres, instead of being spread outwards over the mastoido- 

 humeralis, ascend, perfectly isolated from that muscle, to the posterior border of the 

 rnaxillaris. There it terminates (Fig. 112, 18) by a flattened tendon which, after reaching 

 the anterior border of the masseter, is confounded with the apoueurosis of that muscle, 

 and sends some fibrous bands over the muscles of the face. 



The two portions of the ma.Ktoido-humeralis of Ruminants are better defined, and more 

 oblique on one another, than in the Horse. The superficial portion receives on its-inner 



